Awarepoint has reportedly implemented its Real-time Awareness Solution at the University of Toledo Medical Center.
The company provides a
ZigBee-based real-time awareness and condition sensing network which includes real-time location or RTLS applications and all hardware, software, installation and maintenance. On initial deployment 1,000 medical equipment items were tagged, including IV pumps, patient-controller analgesia pumps, telemetry transmitters, continuous positive air pressure machines and others.
“In a hospital setting, sometimes it’s a challenge to find certain mobile pieces of equipment,” said Steve Hanenkrath, manager of technology support on Health Science Campus, in a release. “There were times my IT staff and staff from central services would lose a few hours of the workday just looking for IV pumps.”
The Awarepoint Real-time Awareness Solution employs wireless technology for locating hospital equipment enterprise-wide. The University of Toledo Medical Center or UTMC will have sensors plugged into wall outlets throughout the premises forming a wireless network that pinpoints tagged equipment and transmits its location to an Internet site.
“The equipment tags talk to the wall sensors. The sensors then talk to a router that transmits a message to an asset tracking management Web site,” Hanenkrath explained.
The system can track a single piece of equipment to a room and within three feet of its real-time location in the enterprise. Users will be able to track equipment easily without leaving their desks. It eliminates need for searching on foot for equipment needed for specific purposes.
UTMC has worked with Awarepoint’s Client Services Team to apply business intelligence rules that provide proactive management of resources besides using the ‘search and locate’ phase of the system. The system is also capable of alerting hospital staff when a tagged item leaves the UTMC’s perimeter.
The solution also helps streamline clinical processes by arming the staff with the right resources at the right time. This reduces patients’ wait times, manages preventive maintenance and recall notices on medical equipment and also helps UTMC save money.
Tammy Moore, vice president of client services at Awarepoint, said that each client is uniquely different but the management strategies are scalable to match such differences. Awarepoint account managers strive to maximize the value of each client’s enterprise awareness infrastructure, he said.
The company’s Real-time Awareness Solution includes enterprise awareness platform, firmware, active RFID tags, sensors, and bridges. The system collects raw sensor data and transforms that data into high-value location and condition information that can be used to enhance healthcare asset management, patient flow, workflow and environmental sensing applications.
