RTLS in healthcare
For more than 10 years, Real-time location systems (RTLS) have been applied to hospitals around the world. During this time, its most widespread use case has been the location of equipment using systems brought directly from the logistics sector and offered by many companies that little by little are trying to gain a foothold in hospitals, bringing products at very low cost and poorly adapted to the sector.
It is true that RTLS applied to equipment offers great benefits in terms of inventory optimization and stock control, and it is a service that MYSPHERA has offered since the beginning of our journey, but the true potential of this type of system lies in the location of patients.
Patient centered care, also for RTLS
We know how one of the great trends in the health sector, “the patient at the center“, has been the subject of a multitude of articles, conferences and round tables. And rightly so, the patients are the center of all processes in a hospital, and it is around them that all workflows are formed. The same happens when applying an RTLS in a health center, the key is to place the patient in the center, and that means locating them.
But in this use case it is no longer so easy to bring a product from the logistics sector and apply it directly, much less if we are talking about getting all the value that this type of system can offer. Hospitals are the most complex organizations that exist, with multiple simultaneous work processes occurring in them that involve professionals with all kinds of profiles in situations of great stress. People’s health is dealt with, and there is nothing more delicate and precious than that.
That is why in order to correctly apply an RTLS for patients, you require vast experience in the sector and br able offer solutions that really attack the specific problems that a hospital has.
Knowing the position of patients in real time is a great asset, there is no doubt, and being able to collect this data to study traceability reports can offer great value. But the key is to know how to show that information in the right place to whoever needs it at that moment, to offer tools to use it easily and, ultimately, to know how to use the location of patients so that it really has a useful impact on the daily life of hospital staff.
Streamline patient flow with an RTLS
Patients change their situation in the process mainly through movement. Knowing how to use that is incredibly powerful when it comes to organizing the work around them. An RTLS can coordinate staff through automatic tasks and keep all hospital workers informed in real time of what is happening in other areas that are relevant to their daily work.
At MYSPHERA we have been developing our heatlhcare solutions for more than ten years and we have deployed our technology in more than fifty hospitals in Europe. We’ve built our products by working closely with healthcare staff, designing every software screen with them, every smartphone app, and every workflow. We know of no other sector than healthcare and we will never migrate. We believe in what we do and in our vision: that healthcare staff dedicate all their working time to patients, free of distractions, administrative and coordination tasks.
