The recent Webinar Wednesday session “RTLS Simplified: Generating Organizational Buy-In for Asset Tracking” was sponsored by Midmark RTLS and eligible for 1 credit from the ACI.
In this 60-minute webinar, Midmark RTLS experts Jeanne Kraimer, RTLS product manager, and H.T. Snowday, vice president of innovation and technology discussed how to generate buy-ins across departments and with leadership for an RTLS initiative.
Rounding throughout the hospital looking for equipment to perform preventive maintenance is seen as a necessary part of the biomedical engineer’s job. Often, biomeds are searching for equipment that will never be found. IV pumps travel to other hospitals with patients, bladder scanners are hidden so well by nursing that they can’t be located, telemetry packs get lost in the laundry and wheelchairs mysteriously disappear.
Most health care leaders believe this reality to be unavoidable, and alternative solutions like RTLS to be cost-prohibitive or too complex to implement. To compensate, hospitals over-spend on equipment, but the impact is far more wide-ranging – not only on equipment purchases, but also asset write-offs, rental equipment, staff inefficiency and dissatisfaction.
Attendees were able to learn how to quantify these costs, identify other uses and advocate for RTLS in their hospital. The presenters also discussed how to evaluate the various technologies available, including new and simpler ways to implement an accurate RTLS.
Additional information was shared during a question-and-answer session. One question was, “How often do facilities install or use multiple types of locating technologies?”
“We do see that quite a bit in health care, you know, with our IR proprietary technology that we’ve offered for many years, that can be combined with Wi-Fi. For example, other Wi-Fi locating providers often combine with infrared or ultrasound. So, it is very common out there. With the new BLE technology we’re hoping that BLE can take that. The need for RTLS, especially for asset tracking. It can’t be the only technology, but we still do see a need for infrared. For example, when you need that room level granularity for things like nurse call automation or patient flow optimization,” Kraimer said.
Additional questions resulted in great insights regarding RTLS.
Attendees provided feedback in a post-webinar survey that included the question, “How well did the content that was delivered match what you were promised when you registered?”
“Spot on,” Clinical Engineering Manager P. Graham said.
“Informative,” Senior Biomedical Electronics Specialist P. Lindquist said.
The Webinar Wednesday series continues to have its best year ever with just shy of 5,000 registrations through November 10. Webinars are attracting approximately 100 attendees per session plus on-demand viewers.
For more information, visit WebinarWednesday.live.