Hospitals are facing unprecedented challenges, from a worsening workforce shortage to financial pressures to clinician and patient safety concerns. Real-time location systems (RTLS) show great promise as a potential solution to many of their pressing issues.
What is RTLS?
Real-time location systems, or RTLS, are composed of tracking tags, anchors for those tags enabling their use and software running via a network — such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or RFID — that makes the system work cohesively.
Why hospitals are ideal environments for RTLS
Hospitals are often large buildings containing many moving parts and people. RTLS can be embedded into patient wristbands, giving clinical teams the ability to locate patients immediately. They can track infections and help clinicians prevent them from spreading. RTLS can be embedded into medications and assets, eliminating the need for manual tracking by care teams and the time that accompanies it. They can also track supplies, which help surface stock issues and usage trends.
What is RTLS?
Real-time location systems, or RTLS, are composed of tracking tags, anchors for those tags enabling their use and software running via a network — such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or RFID — that makes the system work cohesively.
Why hospitals are ideal environments for RTLS
Hospitals are often large buildings containing many moving parts and people. RTLS can be embedded into patient wristbands, giving clinical teams the ability to locate patients immediately. They can track infections and help clinicians prevent them from spreading. RTLS can be embedded into medications and assets, eliminating the need for manual tracking by care teams and the time that accompanies it. They can also track supplies, which help surface stock issues and usage trends.
Streamlining healthcare workflow with RTLS
By their very nature, RTLS help streamline healthcare workflows in hospitals. One of the main ways they do that is by reducing the time it takes to find patients and assets, such as wheelchairs, that are needed during the course of providing care.
These systems also enable accurate tracking of bed status, which may help hospitals deliver care more effectively and efficiently.Additionally, RTLS can help reduce workload for healthcare professionals, who face increased patient loads due to workforce shortages and have been experiencing increased levels of burnout since the pandemic.
RTLS and resource management
Saving clinical teams the time of locating items is a specific, obvious example of how RTLS can assist hospitals with resource management. RTLS can also reduce costs associated with overbuying: Hospitals are estimated to buy 10% to 20% more portable equipment than needed so their teams can find it in a pinch. With RTLS, teams do not need to hoard items, and hospitals don’t need to buy extra stock to ensure equipment is on hand for care delivery.
RTLS’ role in healthcare worker security
Violence is on the rise in hospitals across the nation, especially in emergency departments: Up to one in every five healthcare workers has experienced physical abuse. Panic buttons can be integrated into RTLS badges, allowing threatened individuals to access help discreetly, which can reduce the chances of escalation (calling for help may increase the threat.) The RTLS immediately shares the healthcare professional’s location with a hospital’s security team, enabling help to reach them even if they are on the move.
Improving patient care with RTLS
RTLS can even help clinicians deliver value-based care by integrating with EHR systems. In a feature in “Healthcare IT News,” Dr. Valerie McKinnis, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Mountain Region CommonSpirit Health, describes how she used RTLS to transform the rounding experience at St. Francis Interquest, a “hospital of the future” built in 2023.
The RTLS integration with Epic Monitor enables her team to view laboratory information, vital signs, medication orders and more on a monitor at the foot of each patient’s bed. St. Francis Interquest’s RTLS automatically logs clinicians into the system when they enter a patient’s room. This unique use of the technology fosters more face-to-face time with patients and eliminates clinician reliance on computers, scraps of paper, and the like for tracking the many factors involved in delivering care. It also supports team collaboration, keeping vital health events and markers in one place.
Creating hospitals of the future
Technology like RTLS will be critical to creating hospitals of the future. Those that are able to intentionally integrate technology into their organizations will have an edge — not only financially, but in the care they provide to patients. Keeping patients at the center with the help of emerging technology will ultimately lead to better patient outcomes and deeper connections between those giving and receiving care.
Revolutionize your on-demand workforce
References
“Colorado Hospital Achieves the Quadruple aim with RTLS Part 1” (Healthcare IT News).
“Colorado Hospital Achieves the Quadruple aim with RTLS Part 2” (Healthcare IT News).
“How RTLS Security Can Protect Healthcare Workers and Reduce Burnout” (Healthcare IT News).
“Workplace Violence in Healthcare” (NIH).
“Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLS) In Healthcare: a Condensed Primer” (Springer).
