Proven Success in Healthcare

When Awarepoint was established, its founders recognized that active RFID technologies had applicability for addressing a wide range of needs for buyers in numerous industries – from manufacturing, to healthcare, military applications, building management, security, and more. 

However, realizing that business success demands focus, the Awarepoint team determined the company should focus on developing a real time location system (RTLS) to address the asset tracking and management challenges faced by healthcare institutions, especially hospitals.

 

Today, Awarepoint has successfully been installed in prestigious teaching medical centers, leading nation-wide healthcare organizations and the largest naval hospital in the country. Awarepoint can help you identify opportunities to improve the way your hospital works. Based on our healthcare background, Awarepoint has developed business cases with a wide-range of healthcare organizations from multiple hospital systems to smaller facilities, as shown below in a sample of client success stories:

 

(Note: In order to maintain client confidentially, hospital details are not specified. Specific client reference meetings and hospital tours can be arranged by your Awarepoint Solutions Consultant. Contact us for references or to arrange a hospital tour.)

 

 

Patient Transport Application

At 400 beds and 1,500 employees, this Medical Center is one of the most comprehensive facilities in Southern California. The hospital is known for its quality cardiology, oncology, bariatrics, orthopedics and women’s health services.

 

Challenge: Patient transport is often delayed when a wheelchair or gurney cannot be located. Transport “bottlenecks” negatively impact patient flow and experience.

 

Solution: The facility piloted Awarepoint’s asset tracking system on wheelchairs, gurneys and transport personnel to review operational efficiency.

 

Benefits Achieved: Transport efficiency problems were quickly uncovered, and results were immediate. Total number of transports increased by 9.3% while the number of excessive delays associated with patient transport was reduced by over 50%.

 

“Before the Awarepoint system, searching for a wheelchair or gurney could take transporters anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes”

– Director of Materials

 

 

Equipment Utilization and Business Process Application

At over 400 beds and nearly 2,000 employees, this hospital is part of America’s leading integrated healthcare organization and provides short-term acute-care services.

 

Challenge: Staff frustration when searching for infusion pumps was identified as a particular challenge at this facility. Time spent searching for equipment takes nursing focus away from direct patient care and contributes to staff dissatisfaction.

 

Solution: The facility applied Awarepoint asset tracking to infusion pumps in order to reduce staff time spent searching for this equipment. Data collection led to best practices to optimize their placement.

 

Benefits Achieved: Early use of the system revealed 155 staff searches per week. Within 2 months, infusion pump placement was optimized and staff searches were reduced to 15. This business process optimization produced an estimated savings of $15,750/month.

 

 

Equipment Rental Application

This 119-bed hospital and ambulatory care center is a general medical-surgical facility that offers a full range of services, including: general and specialty surgery, cardiology, endocrinology, neurology, orthopedics, oncology, reproductive medicine and pulmonary medicine.

 

Challenge: Rental expenditures were over $18,000 monthly at this facility (not including bed rental). Goal is to reduce expenses to less than $500.

 

Solution: The hospital made use of Awarepoint’s active alerting to reduce rental expenditures by monitoring rental equipment status (activity) and monitored equipment rental schedules to ensure adherence to rental pick up.

 

Benefits Achieved: In less than 5 months, perioperative services reduced rental expenditures from over $18,000 monthly to less than $1,500. As use of Awarepoint continues to expand, the goal is to reduce expenses to less than $500 monthly (not including bed rentals).

 

 

Equipment Rental Application

Challenge: Find an effective way to maximize equipment utilization and alleviate processing bottlenecks.

 

Solution: The hospital used Awarepoint to monitor equipment “in-use” time and uncover where processing bottlenecks occur.

 

Benefits Achieved: The facility was able to reduce next year’s capital budget by over $450,000 by optimizing mobile equipment utilization and flow (not including beds).

 

 

Patient Safety / Clinical Engineering (Biomed) Application

Challenge: URGENT. MEDICAL DEVICE RECALL. FDA notice necessitated that Clinical Engineering immediately locate recalled equipment. According to the FDA, equipment included a design defect that if not detected, “may result in serious patient harm or death.” Equipment needed to be located and “warning labels” placed on each device to visibly reinforce critical requirement to verify accuracy prior to patient use.

 

Solution: The hospital made use of Awarepoint to quickly and efficiently locate all recalled equipment in their facility.

 

Benefits Achieved: In less 48 hours, the Clinical Engineering team was able to locate 100% of recalled devices tracked with Awarepoint. In contrast, at the hospital’s second facility, which has not currently deployed Awarepoint, 22 recalled devices were still unaccounted 2 weeks after the recall notice.

 

 

Sterile Protocol Application

With over 100 beds, this acute care facility includes an active emergency department, outpatient surgery center, general medical/surgical services, birth center and Level II NICU.

 

Challenge: Understand instances where patient safety is compromised when non-sterile instrumentation may be used for patient procedures. (This adverse situation is partly impacted by poor equipment workflow.)

 

Solution: The facility conducted a study using Awarepoint’s asset tracking system to alert nurse managers when sterile protocol was compromised (e.g., when equipment moves from one sterile area to the next before being processed by the sterile processing department).

 

Benefits Achieved: During the 7 month study, 27 alerts were acted upon, providing hospital administrators the information needed to avert potentially dangerous clinical outcomes.