7 Ways RTLS Software Improves Healthcare with Application Interoperability

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7 Ways RTLS Software Improves Healthcare with Application Interoperability

As the healthcare sector continuously adopts new technologies to improve care, a careful examination of the effectiveness of digital advancements becomes imperative. Amid this review, the convergence of Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) health care, automation, and application interoperability emerges as a transformative influence, redefining the operational landscape of healthcare facilities.

What is Interoperability in RTLS healthcare?

In healthcare, interoperability denotes the capacity of diverse information technology systems and software applications to communicate, exchange data, and utilize the shared information efficiently.

This involves some choke points like the seamless sharing of health information among various healthcare systems, encompassing electronic health record (EHR) systems, medical devices, and other health information technologies.

The integration of location services

The incorporation of location technologies, real time tracking, status, and sensory data into existing technological frameworks is key for achieving improved location accuracy. This integration serves as a central requirement, facilitating the efficient coordination of diverse components within the system. By strategically merging location data with pre-existing technological investments, healthcare facilities can optimize operational processes and enhance the experience of caregivers and improve patient care.

With this foundational understanding, let’s delve into the pivotal role that healthcare RTLS system plays within this framework. We will highlight the top 7 aspects of the use of RTLS in healthcare that affirm its significance within the broader context of interoperability and its transformative impact in the respective industry.

1. Unified Integration Standards

A RTLS healthcare system should smoothly sync with and enhance the current technologies and IT infrastructure in healthcare settings. It ought to seamlessly meld into the existing IT framework, creating a fluid and engaging partnership with other technological components used in the healthcare facility. This ensures a seamless exchange of information among diverse healthcare systems, streamlining the often-tricky process of integrating data in healthcare environments.

2. User-Friendly Adoption

Streamlining workflows becomes more than a convenience when healthcare RTLS applications can prioritize user-friendly features to accelerate adoption. By minimizing training periods and creating an environment favorable to technology acceptance, healthcare staff can efficiently incorporate healthcare RTLS solutions and RTLS technology into their routines, leading to increased productivity and satisfaction.

3. Resource Optimization

Beyond its real-time tracking capabilities, effective healthcare real time location services address the challenge of resource optimization. By providing insights into asset utilization, staff allocation, and equipment availability, healthcare facilities can minimize unnecessary expenses, ensuring a more efficient allocation of resources.

4. Real-Time Patient Data Access

The automatic integration of location data with Electronic Health Records (EHR) is likely the most critical of all. This integration empowers healthcare providers with timely and accurate information, enabling them to make informed decisions promptly. Through received signals in real-time, they bridge the gap between RTLS healthcare systems and EHR, further enhancing patient care and contributing to more efficient and effective healthcare delivery. This advanced integration can also automatically populate billing and coding needs natively, saving administrative time and ensuring invoicing is accurate.

5. Facilitated Communication

Integrating functionalities such as nurse call systems and staff duress alerts with the RTLS network adds an additional layer of communication efficiency. Through the use of active RFID tags and RTLS for urgent care, this ensures that healthcare staff can promptly respond to patient needs or emergencies. RFID tags communicated via infrared IR to further enhance the overall responsiveness and effectiveness of healthcare delivery.

One study showed that the majority of a nurse’s time, specifically 38.6% (equivalent to 214.2 minutes), was observed to be spent at the nurse station, with less than one-third (171 minutes) allocated in the patient room. This highlights an opportunity for healthcare RTLS software to play a crucial role in optimizing a nurse’s time, redirecting their efforts towards more valuable actions.

6. Proactive Security Measures

In healthcare settings, health and safety RTLS systems should make security a top priority. They safeguard both staff and patient information, keep tabs on activities, and offer administrators improved visibility. This enhanced visibility empowers administrators to take proactive measures, ensuring comprehensive safety and adherence to data protection standards.

7. Strategic Investment

Viewing RTLS for healthcare solutions as strategic investments involves aligning them with the long-term vision and goals of healthcare facilities. Beyond immediate gains, this approach considers the scalability, adaptability, and future-proofing of the technology, ensuring that the investment continues to add value as the healthcare landscape evolves.

Technology Talks: BLE 5.1 in RTLS for Hospitals for Simplicity and Affordability

At the core of the user-friendly and cost-effective nature of RTLS healthcare applications lies Bluetooth Low Energy 5.1 (BLE). This technology not only guarantees technical robustness but also ensures compatibility with ease. BLE 5.1, with its array of versatile RTLS tags, minimal power consumption, and extensive compatibility, serves as the foundational element enabling healthcare RTLS applications to seamlessly integrate into healthcare settings. This harmonious integration is a testament to the interoperability facilitated by BLE 5.1, providing both technical excellence and adaptability within the healthcare environment.

SEE ALSO: https://penguinin.com/ultra-wideband-uwb-vs-bluetooth-low-energy-ble-5-1/

Penguin Location Service ™

In the realm of healthcare, the thoughtful application of real-time tracking can make a significant impact on staff and patient safety, as well as operational efficiency. This is where Penguin steps into space, offering a thoughtful approach to healthcare. PenTrack, a family of products and mobile devices, is caringly designed to provide not just prompt but also cost-effective results. We offer the necessary hardware and software along with our advanced AI-powered location engine, ensuring efficiency and precision. Our solutions seamlessly integrate into physical and software environments with minimal disruption, aligning perfectly with diverse settings.

Discover the thoughtful future of healthcare with Penguin. Book your free consultation today: [email protected]


References 

1. Hendrick A, Chow M, Skierczynski B, and Lu Z. A 36-Hospital Time and Motion Study: How Do Medical-Surgical Nurses Spend Their Time? The Permanente Journal. 2008;12(3):25–34.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3408320/#B1

Hospital Wayfinding Technology Enhancing Patient Outdoor – Indoor Navigation Experience

Hospital Mobile Apps: Boosting Adoption and Enhancing Patient Outdoor – Indoor Navigation Experience

Healthcare institutions are increasingly leveraging technology to enhance patient experiences and streamline services. One powerful tool is the hospital mobile app — two-thirds of the largest U.S. hospitals already offer one [Accenture, 2016].

These apps benefit both patients and staff. But building a successful app is only the beginning. To maximize value, adoption must be prioritized. This article explores strategies to drive uptake and highlights how Penguin Location Services integrates AI in location services, UWB positioning systems, and modern wayfinding technology to elevate patient care.

Building the Hospital Mobile App: What to Keep in Mind

1. Understanding User Needs

Patient experience should come first. Apps must simplify health management, appointment booking, and access to data. At the same time, healthcare staff should benefit from tools that reduce workload and streamline daily tasks.

2. User-Centric Design

Apps need a simple, intuitive interface that works for diverse patient demographics. A well-designed hospital tracking app encourages adoption and ongoing use.

3. Privacy and Security

Patient trust depends on strict data protection. Strong cloud services and centralized security measures are essential to safeguard sensitive medical information.

Value-Added Features that Drive Adoption

  • Patient-Centric Records: Access to medical history, test results, and reminders.

  • Appointment Management: Real-time scheduling, rescheduling, and cancellations reduce no-shows.

  • Telemedicine: Virtual visits and consultations empower patients and expand access to care.

  • Outdoor – Indoor Navigation: Integrated wayfinding technology ensures patients can move seamlessly from parking lots to hospital entrances and directly to their appointments, reducing anxiety and saving time.

  • UWB Positioning Systems: Ultra-wideband precision enables real-time tracking of staff, patients, and assets, ensuring efficiency and safety during critical scenarios like Code Blue emergencies.

These features transform apps into more than digital tools — they become patient engagement platforms powered by AI in location services.

Strategies to Market Your Hospital App

To ensure adoption, hospitals must actively promote their apps. Some proven strategies include:

  • Feature Branding: Spotlight individual features like Outdoor – Indoor Navigation to highlight unique value.

  • Wi-Fi Landing Pages: Encourage downloads when patients connect to hospital Wi-Fi.

  • QR Codes: Simple, instant access to the app store.

  • User Reviews: Build trust by showcasing positive experiences.

  • Staff Advocacy: Train nurses, physicians, and assistants to recommend the app to patients.

  • Print Promotion: Flyers, posters, and cards placed in waiting areas drive awareness.

Penguin Location Services supports hospitals not only with wayfinding technology but also with adoption strategies that increase downloads and ensure lasting engagement.

Partnering with Penguin Location Services

At Penguin Location Services, we specialize in AI in location services, UWB positioning systems, and advanced wayfinding technology that enhance hospital apps. From Outdoor – Indoor Navigation to RTLS-enabled staff tracking, our solutions empower healthcare institutions to deliver better patient experiences and more efficient workflows.

🚀 Ready to enhance your hospital app with next-generation AI-powered location services? Schedule a demo with Penguin Location Services today.

CBAHI – Focus Areas and Solutions

Under the tight monitoring of the Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutes (CBAHI), Saudi Arabia is transforming and revolutionizing the healthcare standards across all medical and healthcare institutes to ensure alignment with the 2030 vision of the kingdom.

In the following article, we reflect on certain aspects of the CBAHI accreditation standards, and how PenguinIN can support you with not only complying but leveraging top-notch technology advancements to be ahead in your healthcare services institute’s offerings quality and operational excellence.

 

Executive Roles & Duties:

The following criteria have been identified as KPIs for execs to focus on:

  • Ensuring the provision of medicines, equipment and the entire supply chain for the facility
  • Collaborating with all departments to elevate the quality of the facility’s work & standards for hospitals.
  • Constantly monitoring and evaluating the state of the facility building
  • Reducing the waste of the institute’s medical resources

Today’s technology help execs by automating monitoring and reporting on different aspects of their facilities and workforce. Being informed will help in better decision-making and response times. Whether it is to determine asset utilization, attendance compliance, facility upkeep or practitioner response time, collected allows execs to build ROI-driven decision-making. PenguinIN has the tools to help execs make informed decisions.

 

Infection control and Hand Hygiene:

Once again, ESR CBAHI is bringing the attention of operators on the issue of hand hygiene by requiring

  • A multidisciplinary committee that provides oversight of the infection prevention and control program
  • Putting in place sterilization, disinfection and hand cleaning compliance procedures
  • Proper use of equipment and supplies to prevent infections and provide them adequately

The issue of hand hygiene has undoubtedly become central to any infection control program.
“A key use case that has tangible ROI is hand hygiene compliance. Being able to know who went where and when are keys to ensuring that compliance rules are adhered to”

Dr Mohammed Smadi, CEO of PenguinIN.

 

Through original research and strategic partnerships, PenguinIN has arrived at a cost-effective solution that is applicable to the retrofit scenario where existing dispenser can be upgraded to offer hand hygiene compliance at individual and ward levels.  Additional benefits include automating the workflow around dispenser replenishment and utilization.

 

Patient Experience & Safety:

Patient centricity is a key element in CBAHI accreditation.  Two key pillars are safety and experience. Putting what might be taken for granted in writing, CBAHI has highlighted the following points as drivers for patient safety:

  • The hospital must have a process to prevent wrong patients, wrong sites & and wrong surgery/procedure
  • The hospital has a process to ensure the correct identification of patients
  • Adding a layer of compliance and traceability reduces unintentional errors. PenguinIN allows for tracking patients and staff to schedule and physical areas to ensure that the entire flow and interactivity are captured in real-time and for historical review.

 

To reduce medical errors, ESR CBAHI has required clear access and egress wayfinding for authorized hospital staff and availing wayfinding boards and enquiry points at entrances.

PenguinIN offers digital wayfinding with a customizable directory listing that is easy to upgrade in multiple languages with options to push infotainment messages which may be related to a particular patient (e.g. while waiting) or department.  In addition to offering a noticeable improvement in the patient experience, such solutions result in a meaningful reduction in missed appointments as well and can be tied with a patient reminder solution.

 

Medical Assets Supply & Tracking:

  • Provision of medical supplies by the healthcare facility management
  • Storing and stocking of medical supplies & equipment according to factory conditions & instructions
  • Regular inspection procedures from the healthcare facility management
  • Ensure the protection of medical supplies from theft or damage
  • Disposal of damaged & expired supplies
  • Reduce the waste of healthcare facility resources

 

Effective medical asset tracking and management are crucial for ensuring patient safety, reducing costs, complying with legal regulations, and improving the quality of patient care in the healthcare setting, hence, PenguinIN has special R&D activities on the family products of “PenTrack”, providing not only pin-point location of assets proximity of things but extends to featuring advanced AI Indoor analytics of data, defined business rules and trigger actions based on automatic detection of these specific conditions.

 

Dental Clinics standards updates:

 

  • The facility must activate the staff health and safety program
  • Immediate and consistent sanitation for doctors, nurses & medical equipment

Solutions developed by PenguinIN, including Duress Call solutions that ensure medical staff safety and security, and medical equipment asset tracking and monitoring are among our top-rated solutions, with solutions implementation ease, utilizing existing Wi-Fi network, and or using simple on-premises BLE/Bluetooth based solution.

 

Enhancing Operational Readiness

  • Neonatal tracking system (to protect against abduction)
  • Tracking the sterilization of medical equipment
  • Nurse tracking to support nurse calling systems and nurse safety
  • Equipment dwell times in dirty and clean rooms
  • System to support facility managers in tracking and scheduling maintenance for medical equipment

These are interesting technology evolution times, and PenguinIN is proud to be working with healthcare providers in Saudi Arabia to address these challenges.

To learn more about how PenguinIN can help your facility, reach out today at [email protected]

 

About PenguinIN 

PenguinIN is a leading indoor positioning and IoT use cases provider, headquartered in Irvine, California, with a regional office in Dubai. The company creates digital parallels for physical spaces to optimize day-to-day processes and create unique experiences for visitors and operators. PenguinIN leverages all available radio and sensor information to provide state-of-the-art indoor positioning information to build ROI-driven use cases, with solutions that have already been proven successful in some of the world’s most challenging environments.

About CBAHI
The Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions (CBAHI) is the official agency authorized to grant accreditation certificates to all governmental and private healthcare facilities operating today in Saudi Arabia. Essential Safety Requirements (ESR CBAHI) has emerged from the Saudi Health Council as a non-profit organization. The principal function of CBAHI accreditation is to set the healthcare quality and patient safety standards against which all healthcare facilities are evaluated for evidence of compliance.

 

(*) References:

  • Close QM.18, ESR Book, National Essential Safety Requirements by CBAHI.
  • Close QM.17, ESR Book, National Essential Safety Requirements by CBAHI.
  • Close IPC.4, ESR Book, National Essential Safety Requirements by CBAHI.
  • Twitter Official Account Announcements by CBAHI:
    https://twitter.com/Cbahi_SA

 

 

CBAHI – A Saudi Approach to Improved Healthcare

CBAHI – A Saudi Approach to Improved Healthcare

 

Saudi Arabia is transforming its healthcare sector through privatization under tight monitoring by the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutes (CBAHI).

CBAHI aims to improve the patient, staff and visitor safety, service level and experience offered by all accredited institutes in the Kingdom. Additionally, it mandates the availability of tools to report errors during the service offering process.

PenguinIN has been refining its solutions to offer healthcare facilities solutions that help satisfy such accreditation requirements. Our solutions address:

 Preventing and Reporting Medical Errors and Improving Safety:

 Ensuring that surgery is always done at the right place

  • Giving a newborn to the correct parents
  • Newborn safety using electronic tagging immediately from birth
  • Ensuring compliance with infection control

 

Improving Patient Experience:

 Offering external and internal wayfinding signage to assist in wayfinding. This includes a navigate from home to clinic feature

  • Clear access and egress wayfinding for authorized hospital staff
  • Availability of wayfinding boards and enquiry points at entrances

 

Enhancing Operational Readiness:

  • Neonatal tracking system (to protect against abduction)
  • Tracking the sterilization of medical equipment
  • Nurse tracking to support nurse calling systems and nurse safety
  • Equipment dwell times in dirty and clean rooms
  • System to support facility managers in tracking and scheduling maintenance for medical equipment

These are interesting times and PenguinIN is proud to be working with healthcare providers in Saudi Arabia to address these challenges.
To learn more about how PenguinIN can help your facility, please send us an email to [email protected]

 

Why & How Do Patients Choose a Hospital?

Why & How do Patients Choose a hospital?

Here’s a question for you: can you influence the patients’ choice of which hospital they attend to?

With the easily accessible medical and facility information online, patients are now more educated and informed about their choices and decisions. A 2017 UK study [1] has shown that convenient location continued to be a major influencing factor over hospital choice; however, other – perhaps less obvious – factors such as the number of beds and even parking spots are being viewed as a proxy for the level of service a hospital is likely to provide.

Information availability and patient freedom over healthcare provider choice drive private and public sectors to deliver a better overall patient experience. Albeit exciting from a patient perspective, it is challenging for operators to (1) identify areas of improvement which are rapidly and continuously evolving and (2) innovative and cost-effective ways to address these areas.

Creating key performance indicators (KPIs) for metrics that impact patient satisfaction and the corresponding tools to measure these KPIs should be a collaborative effort between the different departments. For example, IT managers who historically were responsible for the network and PC upkeep in hospitals, are now being asked to look after mobile applications and infrastructure specifically used to improve the patient experience.

In a 2018 survey [2] covering 1,000 healthcare consumers, it was found that the difficulty in finding one’s way around the hospital was worse of a challenge than poor communications from the doctor.  A solution addressing wayfinding within a hospital can span facility, IT, and patient experience departments.

In a Harvard Business Review article [3], it was shown that even though the average charge for an outpatient emergency room trip was $1,900 in 2016 (twice the average monthly rent for Americans), Patients who arrived at EDs with broken bones waited a painful 54 minutes, on average, before receiving any pain medication! The authors argue that hospitals’ waiting times should be measured and benchmarked against the national average waiting time. Hospitals that exhibit shorter waiting times than the average should be financially rewarded, while underperforming hospitals should be penalized. Such an initiative would involve finance, staff, legal, and patient advocacy teams.

It is our opinion that factors impacting the choice of healthcare provider are evolving in the digital era. Identifying and measuring KPIs is a cross-functional team effort with the ultimate objective of improving the overall patient experience and outcome.

PenguinIN is a healthcare digital transformation solution provider with patient experience solutions including PenNav: a best-in-class indoor wayfinding solution and PenTrack: a solution for asset and people tracking. Through analytics and business rules, PenguinIN works with facility managers, IT managers and patient experience directors to identify and resolve pain points in healthcare settings.

To learn more about what can help you achieve a better patient experience, or to share more thoughts, please reach out to us at [email protected]

 

[1] Patient choice modelling: how do patients choose their hospitals?  Available on: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28401405/
[2] 2018 Hospital Patient Survey Conducted by Scorpion.Co. Available on: https://www.scorpion.co/hospitals/expert-tips/intelligence/hospital-patient-survey-how-do-patients-choose-t/
[3] Harvard Business Review: To Reduce Emergency Room Wait Times, Tie Them to Payments by Nicos Savva and Tolga Tezcan. Available on: https://hbr.org/2019/02/to-reduce-emergency-room-wait-times-tie-them-to-payments