5 Reasons Healthcare Facilities Require RTLS

Healthcare facilities battling the pandemic and rising competitive pressures are fighting to cut costs and boost productivity. To worsen matters? Staff scrambling to locate lost and hoarded equipment wastes life-saving patient care time and costs the healthcare industry billions…

• 85% of nurses spend an hour or more per shift searching for critical, in-demand assets.
• On average, a 300-bed facility will spend $135,000 per year on healthcare equipment rentals to supplement inventory that cannot be located.
• More than $50,000 worth of stolen hospital equipment from one facility surfaced on eBay in one day.

This is precisely why most new healthcare technology advancements aim to streamline processes, prevent lost equipment, and most importantly, provide a better healing environment to patients.

Why is RTLS growing?

Did you know the wearable medical device market, including Real-Time Location Services (RTLS), is experiencing an annual growth rate of 16.4% within the healthcare industry? Imagine being responsible for hundreds, potentially thousands of expensive devices that deliver essential care for countless patients. For healthcare facilities, THAT’S REALITY.  

RTLS drives performance improvement initiatives, so information is accurately presented, processes are fine-tuned, time is never wasted, and patients reap the benefits faster. But that’s just the beginning…

5 benefits of RTLS  

1. Improved staff communication and flow  

86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. RTLS improves patient procedures using real-time location transparency. By tagging beds, staff, and essential healthcare equipment, administrators can access detailed, bed-level location data about patients in real-time. Management can also access staff location history and movement reports to support better patient care and workflows.

2. Calculate your true cost of patient care  

Health care spending in the U.S. increased 4.6% in 2019 alone, reaching $3.8 trillion or $11,582 per person. Health spending accounted for 17.7% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product. 60% of hospital equipment always sits idle. With RTLS, healthcare facilities optimize inventory and ends bloated budgets, helping to reduce care costs.

3. Increase patient & staff safety

There’s a 1 in 300 chance a patient will be injured during health care. With RTLS, willing patients can wear wireless call pendants with a help button. The wearable device will help pinpoint their exact location in the event of an emergency. Provide your staff with smart alerts that prompt staff to check on residents in certain events. If the system identifies a patient in a high-risk area for an extended length of time, it sends notifications to check on them. The solution also notifies staff of exposure to infectious diseases based upon recorded interactions with patients.

4. Protect patient privacy  

With RTLS, devices can be temporarily assigned to one object or person and then reissued to another, so security is easier to control. Real-time location systems also provide secure contact tracing and equipment identification that can be performed entirely within the healthcare organization without the risk of a breach of privacy for staff or patients.

5. Track equipment & usage  

RTLS leverages existing video infrastructure to scan for tagged equipment. Video surveillance displays both fixed and in-motion equipment. This way, staff concentrate on quality care without the diversion of hunting for misplaced or lost assets. Meanwhile, management can have accurate information to better understand inventory levels, usage levels, preventing lost or stolen equipment.

What is RTLS+? 

RTLS+, a fully customizable, award-winning solution from Claro Enterprise Solutions, delivers all the benefits of RTLS plus best-in-class technology combined with white-glove service and expert architecture to tailor the system to your unique requirements. Unlike other real-time location service solutions, RTLS+ delivers AI & ML enabled video analytics hosted on an independent network for increased security and redundancy. With RTLS+, you receive managed asset monitoring and control as a service so that you can focus on what matters: patient care.  

RTLS+ uses geo-fences to pinpoint the precise location of equipment. Safe, caution, and danger zones are established within a facility. If equipment crosses a restricted border, an alert is issued, showing the exact location of the breach.‍

The takeaway

Misplaced and under-utilized healthcare equipment account for an annual cost of $765 billion. Establish virtual security zoning to prevent and locate equipment using Real-Time Location System Plus (RTLS+). Tracking functions provide key data for fall detection, help predict preventative measures, and helps other forms of patient condition monitoring.  

Manage new patient placement by adjusting area-specific acuity and workload, avoiding assigning high-risk patients to areas already flooded with cases. Automate data documentation, enhance team communications, and heighten safety, all to enrich the overall patient care experience using RTLS+. Learn more.