Healthcare Matters

Real-time location(s) systems (RTLS) are surging in popularity. Even mid market-sized companies are making the requisite investments to acquire this capability. The technology has arguably become a cost of doing business (COB) in the transportation verticals. Shippers just expect their carriers to have it.

Other industry segments are following suit. SCM professionals are allocating the necessary budgets –and their implementations have been conspicuously successful. Even healthcare seems to have found its “rhythm” with the technology. “RFID is no longer considered an emerging technology. It is a proven solution with high value add and an increasingly attractive ROI,” said Michael Liard, Director, AutoID for VDC Research Group.

While RTLS is known to provide asset tracking capabilities, it is only one of a growing list of ways the technology is being used. According to VDC, other business benefits companies are realizing include enhanced security, improved visibility and operational efficiency gains across all aspects of their physical supply chains.

Popular applications in healthcare include asset management and tracking, as well as environmental, staff and patient monitoring. The ability to track mobile devices and equipment such as IV pumps and expensive patient monitoring devices not only eliminates theft, but it saves time and money from an administrative and operations perspective. The storage of environmentally sensitive drugs, vaccines, blood and other vital assets can be managed far more effectively, increasing patient safety. In fact, RTLS is now being deployed as an added precaution for patients who are being moved around or have the freedom to move themselves to different locations inside a hospital or other type of healthcare institutions. Applications designed to monitor the routes patients and staff take can be used to reduce the spread of infections and/or eliminate illegal entry to restricted areas. There are a variety of similar “security enhancing” applications that are being used successfully.

We posted a somewhat tongue in cheek story about Geisinger Health’s success with a RTLS solution provider called  Teletracking Technologies. Gesinger was very pleased with its implementation. The ROI story-line for Geisinger was compelling. In fact, VDC’s most recent survey of enterprise end users with RTLS deployments revealed that more than 50 percent of respondents agreed that it took less than a year to realize a return on investment.

Less than a year is impressive. It not only validates the value of such capability being promoted by vendors who sell turnkey solutions for various specialized applications, but it also does so for vendors that have embedded these enabling technologies in their broader featured solutions (e.g. for the implantables supply chain, GHX’s acquisition of Beep N Track comes to mind). However, questions around interoperability, central management and control seem like rich discussion areas with potential vendors. Thank goodness the underlying mechanisms are mostly standards-based.

—Tom Finn