Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) are growing in popularity for inpatient hospital facilities, but few nursing and senior living facilities are leveraging the technology. RTLS services leverage a variety of technologies, but at their core they use the location of assets or people to inform workflows or decision making.
By tracking the location and utilization of equipment like monitors, pumps, wheelchairs, beds, etc. purchasing decisions can be evidence based, instead of being based on intuition.
For instance, if a request from the medical team to purchase additional equipment can be backed up with data on usage patterns, the request is much more likely to be approved by corporate planners.
There are many reasons why having a durable log of patient - caregiver interactions, from continuous improvement to litigation or compliance. An RTLS service that is gathering data automatically can help alleviate the burden of logging, while increasing the accuracy and validity of the data.
The safety of dementia patients in senior facilities is a paramount concern. By leveraging tracking systems that can alert staff immediately to the movement of patients, whether at night or if they try to leave the facility, safety can be improved. Tracking allows doors to remain unlocked or open, which improves both patient and family attitudes toward care.
Whether a nurse simply needs to locate equipment for a procedure or the biomedical team needs to take something out of service for maintenance, time spent searching for equipment is costly. With an RTLS service, equipment can be located via a mobile app or web based dashboard.
Most facilities allow residents to move freely throughout. However when a patient needs to be located for medication, procedure, and visitor, staff routines can be disrupted. If residents can be located via RTLS, it saves time and effort for everyone. Families also enjoy being able to locate their loved one quickly.