Hospital Equipment Traceability & Indoor Location
The Daily Challenge of Hospital Management
Have you ever heard of traceability of hospital equipment?
Amid the hectic routine of a hospital, finding essential equipment such as respirators or wheelchairs is a challenge that takes up valuable time. In addition to directly affecting the quality of care.
At the extreme end, in the midst of critical procedures, we see medical teams frustrated by not locating vital equipment.
But there are also clear financial losses for hospital administration. As in various periodic maintenance operations – where locating equipment takes more time for technicians than the maintenance procedures themselves.
This is the reality in most hospitals, and the traceability of hospital equipment is decisively improving.
From Technology to Results: How Hospital Equipment Traceability Works
Imagine power track exact location of each piece of equipment in understandable indoor maps of the hospital complex. And easily get a detailed history of your movement. This technological innovation incorporates great potential for improving hospital management.
Technically, to enable traceability, 3 steps are necessary:
- The installation of gateways throughout the hospital's internal circulation spaces.
To the surprise of many, these gateways may already be available in the hospital. Since current WiFi equipment already provides this usually underused Bluetooth tracking.
- Next, small IoT devices with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) technology must be attached to each piece of equipment. Which are also called “tags” and which are tracked by gateways.
These BLE tags are ultra-optimized for power consumption. With batteries that last for several years, up to five or six.
And because they use light Bluetooth signals in the same frequency range as our cell phones, they are safe from interference.
- Finally, understandable indoor maps must be provided. With algorithms capable of displaying the location of all equipment, with varied focuses and filters, with an update rate of less than 1 minute.
Maps equipped with location become a powerful tool for the operations team. Thus avoiding losses and theft, reducing maintenance time, location time in general and, for senior management, providing valuable indicators.
The historical movement of this equipment, for example, in maps with statistical flows, provides crucial insights to optimize the allocation of these resources more efficiently, optimize productivity and improve financial results.
Spatial Limits with Alerts: Automated Movement Control
On Zapt Tech's digital maps, it is possible to create so-called “virtual fences”, areas with permission, or not, for certain categories of equipment.
If a piece of equipment goes outside the limits established by its virtual fence, the platform triggers alerts to those responsible who can take immediate action, ensuring safety and improving overall control.
In this way, the system acts proactively, decisively optimizing the movement control processes of all equipment. In a complex environment, where every second counts, the traceability of hospital equipment quickly becomes an indispensable tool.
Ultimately, investing in hospital equipment traceability is not just a smart choice; It is a crucial step towards more efficient, safe and patient-focused management.
The question is no longer if the hospital should implement this technology, but when.
Indoor Location Beyond Hospital Equipment Traceability
We saw that the traceability of hospital equipment requires Indoor Location and Digital Maps. The good news is that once enabled, it can also be used to locate and guide people!
For example, generating optimized routes for a maintenance technician and the shortest route for a member of the medical team to reach the desired equipment.
All of this with guidance on changing floors, step by step, like a “hospital’s private indoor waze”.
Indoor maps, each corridor, room, sector and transition points (elevators, stairs) are accurately represented, facilitating orientation even with distinction of accessible routes or escape routes in emergencies.
With this, the maps become a “digital twin”, a mirror of the physical hospital complex in the digital world, allowing features that the game changer in management.
Ready to increase efficiency in hospital equipment management?
Get in touch with us via email: contato@zapt.tech and discover how hospital equipment traceability can improve the way you manage medical resources.
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