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Phunware | Austin, Texas

Interactive maps that offer patients, staff, and visitors real-time navigation in a 437-bed hospital

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Customer

 

Virginia Hospital Center Health System (VHC) is a 437-bed not-for-profit teaching facility in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. VHC was recently designated a Newsweek 2020 Best Maternity Care Hospital, received a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and was once again named a Leapfrog Top Hospital in 2019. The Hospital is a proud member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network and is designated as a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
 

Solution Providers

 
Phunware, Inc. is a pioneer of Multiscreen as a Service (MaaS), an award-winning, fully integrated enterprise cloud platform for mobile that provides companies the products, solutions, data, and services necessary to engage, manage and monetize their mobile application portfolios and audiences globally at scale. Phunware’s Software Development Kits (SDKs) include location-based services, mobile engagement, content management, messaging, advertising, loyalty (PhunCoin & Phun), and analytics, as well as a mobile application framework of pre-integrated iOS and Android software modules for building an in-house or channel-based mobile application and vertical solutions. Phunware helps the world’s most respected brands create category-defining mobile experiences, with more than one billion active devices touching its platform each month.
 
Kontakt.io, Inc. is the industry leader in indoor location services and BLE beacons. Its mission is to better connect people, locations, and things to improve employees’ and customers’ experience, save costs, decrease carbon footprint, and increase productivity through innovation. Kontakt.io empowers vertical business applications, with open standard APIs and AI-driven event streams to help enterprises accelerate through digital transformation. To their location-aware technology partners, they offer IoT device management software, location and condition services, beacons, and gateways to help them focus on core innovation, reducing time to market and costs. Today, they serve over 2,000 customers across diverse sizes and industries, from healthcare, airports, governments, and public spaces. Kontakt.io strives to delight people and make a real difference in the world wherever possible by providing an enterprise-tailored software solution scaled to the internet.

 

Problem

 

Phunware was contracted to provide a fully configured and flexible digital front door solution for Virginia Hospital Center to improve its patient experience. The project was designed to bring a number of services into one cohesive mobile app and make it easier for patients to schedule appointments through remote telehealth services. It was also intended to message service providers and even help patients navigate the VHC campus on their way to meetings with healthcare professionals.
 
Essentially, Phunware’s task was to enable an enhanced level of convenience and care to VHC patients by fulfilling a number of specified “musts” for their app:
 

  • Wayfinding with easy navigation of the Virginia Hospital Center facility with real-time instructions
  • Find a doctor
  • Schedule appointments
  • MyChart integration, which allows patients to view information on their vital signs in real time along with laboratory results, medical procedures, and medications
  • MyChart Video Visit functionality to leverage the mobile phone’s camera to conduct virtual appointments
  • Manage prescriptions
  • Save my Parking location with a photo and leave a detailed note
  • Access to physician and services directories that include contact information and tap-to-call buttons

 

Solution

 

Kontakt.io’s BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacons with Phunware’s powerful platform enable Virginia Hospital to have real-time indoor wayfinding. With Phunware’s Blue Dot SDK, GPS-like indoor navigation allows patients, visitors, and staff to access interactive maps that route them to their locations in real-time by using their actual position. The iOS- and Android-compatible solutions pinpoint a device’s location to real-world latitude, longitude, and floor level.
 
The whole project, from concept to going live, took five months.
 
Kontakt.io was also an ideal choice as a partner because of their expert knowledge and use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which was the ideal way to integrate with their platform.
 
The best validation of all comes from patients who use the app, who have provided extremely positive feedback since the launch.
 

 
“Kontakt.io has industry-proven and reliable beacons that are economical and easy to deploy. Other solutions we explored would have added months to our deployment timelines and incurred tens of thousands of additional dollars in installation costs while still not providing an equivalent level of performance.” Nick Lutz, Director, Sales Engineering of Phunware