Knowing where patients are as their care journey progresses through the hospital, capturing the time and location of care delivery events and activities, and locating the nearest available piece of critical medical equipment are just a few of the potential applications for Real Time Location Systems (RTLS).
RTLS uses a breadth of technologies to enable real-time, automatic sensing of location of people and objects. The solution consists of battery operated tags either fixed to an asset or worn by a clinician or patient, a centralized middleware element for graphical user viewing of asset locations and management, and a wireless network infrastructure to connect tags to middleware.
PVA’s core competency is the wireless network infrastructure. PVA’s capabilities comprise the following:
- Site survey and network assessment to determine if an existing wireless network has adequate coverage and network bandwidth
- Site survey of a greenfield design to analyze floor plans and building materials to develop heat maps
- Engineering and design of where wireless access points should be placed in a facility
- Procurement of equipment
- Installation, integration and ongoing maintenance of the sensor wireless network.
By implementing an RTLS-based asset management systemvariability can be reduced by having the right mobile medical equipment at the right place and at the right time. Variability can also be reduced by combining condition information with location to ensure that equipment is clean and maintained to appropriate revision level and preventative maintenance schedules. Ultimately, the variability of equipment utilization can be dramatically reduced when real-timelocation information can be combined with equipment management processes.
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