Versus Announces Expansion of RTLS Asset Tracking Services at PeaceHealth Medical Center

The PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend will benefit from another expansion of Real-time Locating System (RTLS) services from Versus Technology, Inc.  The hospital has been leveraging the Versus RTLS systems for clinical automation and improved communication and also to ensure increased situational awareness and visibility of patients, staff and assets.

In a release, Christian Buchsteiner, Healthcare Improvement Engineer, said that, "We knew we needed new distribution process for Infusion pumps and other house-wide small assets like PCA and syringe pumps. Initially, we went live with tracking the IV pump location and generating daily replenishment reports twice per day to balance PAR levels. Post implementation, and with the help of Versus experts and PeaceHealth technical resources in HID/CHR, we transitioned our process from a daily replenishing model to a lean Just-In-Time model by designing and implementing a real-time par level management system complete with 'below par level' and 'above par level' alerts for IV pumps to trigger the inventory replenishing and balancing process."

PeaceHealth used equipment tracking application and par level alerts for IV pumps to migrate from a lease/rental model to a purchase model for IV pumps. Even a 26% reduction of the IV pump fleet by did not impact availability of equipment for staff.  At present PeaceHealth is overlooking the expansion of the Versus Asset Module to other assets. By employing “rigger” and method similar to what was used to IV pumps for each asset purchased on-line, PeaceHealth benefited from cost savings.

Buchsteiner said that, "Our first step was to evaluate our IV pump utilization rate throughout the hospital. To do so, we utilized our Versus RTLS solution to track equipment and to fully understand the existing distribution. This provided the foundation for the standardized equipment distribution model we would create."

Next, PeaceHealth added simulation testing making it easy for them to analyze pump flow from first to final IV pump usage by patients. Often nurses had to search for IV pumps and at times ended up hoarding equipment. For this system and process to change, clean IV pumps had to be made available for use when and where they were required.

Buchsteiner went on to say "To solve this a cross-functional team with nursing involvement and great operational leadership provided by Tim May, our Clinical Lead, and Chris McGuire, our Distribution Manager, validated several options, including centralized and de-centralized distribution and inventory models. The team realized that a hybrid model that relied on PAR level management would offer the greatest benefit in alignment with key project objectives. The backbone of this new process was the Versus Advantages real-time asset tracking system, and continued success relies on Versus to support PeaceHealth's processes.”