One of the biggest challenges facing the healthcare industry is the effective management of assets like essential medical equipment, wheelchairs, bed usage, and medications. An inefficient system leads to significant money loss and negatively impacts patient care, satisfaction, employee productivity, and job satisfaction.
The number of devices and supplies readily available in hospitals increases the likelihood of human error in manual inventory management and asset tracking. Another downside to these inefficient systems is the time it takes hospital staff to locate vital medical devices. Staff may hoard necessary items so they have them on hand when needed, causing inventory discrepancies, misplaced equipment, and excess purchasing. The strain of extra work and difficulty finding supplies can add to nurse burnout and staffing issues.
Poor asset tracking can cause bottlenecks and delays as patients wait for provider care, testing, or an available bed. These instances lead to frustration and stress, contributing to a negative patient experience and damaging the hospital’s reputation. In serious cases, care delays can affect patient health outcomes.
A well-designed real-time asset-tracking system can significantly improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance patient care. Learn the essential features to consider when choosing a system and how Kontakt.io’s innovative technology transforms operational efficiency.
Core Features for Streamlined Operations
Hospitals have a huge inventory of vital medical tools, from small and mobile to large and expensive. Part of the commitment to delivering excellent patient care is keeping these tools clean, serviced, and readily available. An IoT asset tracking system can help you accomplish this.
Real-time Location Tracking
Kontakt.io’s IoT asset tracking technology is ideal for different types of trackable healthcare assets. This includes medical devices like IV pumps, routine supplies, medications, wheelchairs, and even available patient beds.
Having the right resources available when needed is vital for providing effective patient care. Hard-to-find or unavailable assets can impact the patient’s care quality and outcome, particularly in emergencies. This is why it’s so important for staff to have the ability to pinpoint the exact location of equipment for quick retrieval during procedures. Several technologies are currently in use for asset tracking:
- Barcodes: Businesses have used barcodes for asset tracking since the 1970s. This method involves scanners reading unique barcode labels, offering a cost-effective and efficient alternative to manual tracking methods. However, barcodes only provide data on the static location of items, such as products in a warehouse, making them unreliable for tracking equipment frequently moved by hospital staff. In contrast, Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) platforms offer additional insights into quality control and maintenance status.
- RFID: Passive RFID tags are very low-cost, but have limited use in asset tracking. Active RFID is more suited for this use case but is expensive due to the high cost of tag readers.
- Bluetooth RTLS: Bluetooth uses affordable tags, readable with most smartphones that have Bluetooth capability. It’s easy to use and manage and uses numerous beacons to balance its short range.
- Ultra-Wideband: This option provides impressive precision, but has a high cost. It’s also a less popular option for RTLS than RFID and Bluetooth.
Each of these solutions has its advantages, however, Bluetooth Low Energy is a common choice for RTLS platforms. This is because it’s less expensive, has long-lasting battery life (8 years), is easily scalable, and many mobile devices already come equipped with the technology. All of these advantages make it easy to utilize cell phones as tag readers instead of purchasing special equipment. BLE is also simple to customize to your preferred level of accuracy. For greater precision, just install additional beacons.
Asset Requests and Management
Traditional asset management makes it more difficult for an entire facility to track the usage and availability of supplies across multiple departments. One department may run low on crucial assets and order more, while another has a surplus, making this expenditure unnecessary.
Real-time asset tracking locates every tagged asset in the facility, no matter where it is. Tracking asset usage throughout the hospital also provides valuable data showing how often an asset is used, where it gets used, and other insights that let you more effectively manage and distribute your equipment and supplies. This makes it easier for departments to share resources, increasing asset utilization and optimizing asset placement for the greatest convenience.
Most hospitals can save millions of dollars each year by right-sizing their inventory, and the savings helps to keep the cost of delivering care affordable for your patients.
Medical Asset Data Storage
Hospitals are responsible for keeping records and reports on all assets throughout their lifecycle. Having a centralized system to store detailed information about each asset. This data includes maintenance history, service manuals, and calibration certificates ensuring the equipment is up-to-date and it is clean and ready for use. This reduces equipment downtime and prevents care delays.
Features for Enhanced Efficiency and Cost Savings
The ideal asset-tracking system provides you with as much information as possible. Finding the physical location of an item is essential, but data regarding equipment lifecycles, maintenance alerts, and utilization creates reports your facility can use to inform purchasing and optimize workflows.
Inventory Quality Control and Maintenance
Implementing a real-time asset tracking system like Kontakt.io’s RTLS platform gives you access to a broad range of information and control over essential functions.
RTLS simplifies PAR level management by setting and maintaining inventory quantities so stock gets automatically replenished once it drops to certain levels. The system automates inventory checks to help you improve asset utilization, prevent errors, stop overstocking, and avoid lost or missing equipment.
RTLS even enforces compliance with equipment protocols and maintenance schedules. Staff can view data showing the cleaning and maintenance history of every piece of equipment. This makes it easy to track when an item is due for maintenance to keep it in great condition and optimize its lifecycle. If staff notice an issue with a piece of equipment, they can easily generate an order to schedule maintenance.
Kontakt.io’s IoT tracking solution also generates alerts to trigger required action, from maintenance to spoilage prevention if an asset’s temperature or condition diverges from the acceptable range.
Analytics and Reporting
RTLS solutions use wireless devices to communicate with asset tags. Every signal exchanged between them gets analyzed and stored. This data is available to generate reports on asset utilization, identify underused equipment, and inform data-driven purchasing decisions.
Your staff can access gathered data at any time using the platform’s app on a mobile device or hospital workstation. Use the data to create comprehensive reports or visuals in the form of charts and graphs that clearly demonstrate crucial information like equipment utilization rates. Leveraging data to glean insights into your operations lets you see where you need to improve.
Another benefit of data analytics is predictive analytics for preventative maintenance. The data helps you identify items that need maintenance or replacement to avoid possible equipment failure. Acting on early warning signs reduces equipment downtown and ensures properly functioning equipment is available.
Additional Considerations for Improved Patient Care
Choosing a real-time asset-tracking system is an important decision that requires careful thought. Many variables going beyond the ability to track an item’s physical location contribute to making the ideal choice.
Integration with Existing Systems
Seamless integration is key to a successful deployment. Your ideal solution must work with your existing hospital information systems for a unified workflow.
Some asset tracking systems require extensive changes to your infrastructure to support the new technology. This is typically expensive and time-consuming. However, Kontakt.io’s BLE solutions are specifically designed to work with your current infrastructure, cutting the cost and time commitment for implementation.
Security and Compliance
Hospitals handle highly sensitive patient data throughout the care journey. Prioritizing robust security features that protect sensitive patient data and keep it private, while ensuring regulatory compliance with HIPAA, is a must. Kontakt.io uses encryption protocols and other security measures to safeguard data transmissions and storage.
Scalability and User-Friendliness
While focusing on solving your facility’s current challenges is essential, the best asset-tracking systems support future expansion. Kontakt.io designed an RTLS platform that is highly scalable to adapt to your changing needs without changing your infrastructure.
Along with scalability and future-proofing, Kontakt.io provides an intuitive interface that is easy for all staff to use, no matter how large or small your operations. With minimal training, each staff member can utilize the various apps to solve problems, communicate more effectively, and find any asset they need.
Transform Your Healthcare System With Kontakt.io’s RTLS Platform
When selecting an asset-tracking system, it’s important to prioritize what your health system requires to solve your unique challenges. Look for features that extend beyond physical location information. Benefits like inventory management, maintenance information, and data analytics and reporting provide greater value than asset tracking alone.
Kontakt.io’s RTLS platform gives you all this and more. Our easy-to-use solutions allow you to get up and running in no time. You can start improving your operational efficiency, reducing waste, and elevating patient care with our innovative asset-tracking technology. Quick deployment means a faster ROI. Optimize your hospital’s operations with a well-chosen tracking solution from Kontakt.io.
