DMN: What kind of OR and ED productivity increases are you referring to?

AB: OR and ED are among our most popular use cases, where our customers have seen better than 25 percent productivity increases. In the OR, RTLS has proven to speed throughput and enhance revenue generation, in that hospitals are able to schedule more procedures. Similarly in the ED, RTLS is reducing wait times and improving the patient experience.


DMN: We've recently interviewed one of your customers who said for them while asset management is a nice benefit, their investment in RTLS was about patient flow and workflow. What is your sense of the importance of this?

AB: It's a very important part of the RTLS evolution to achieve what we call "real time intelligence" to ultimately impact quality of care and increase patient satisfaction. For clinical staff, knowing in real time where a patient is at all times will enable them to better anticipate their work and deliver care more effectively. For administrators, it will help with staff efficiency and utilization because they will know how to allocate staff resources and adjust appointment times. By better utilizing staff time, especially that of nurses, it is possible to increase a facility's capacity to serve patients through accommodating more patient visits, for example, and increasing the speed of delivery of care. Of course getting patients examined sooner can have an impact on outcomes, and there is no doubt that they will be more satisfied, not to mention their families and communities. Part of that rests on better monitoring and managing patient discharges, resulting in quicker bed turnaround and reduced wait times.

DMN: What do you see as the barriers to acquiring an RTLS system?

AB: First, there are multiple decision makers and stakeholders, so deciding to implement RTLS requires vision, confidence, leadership and consensus. Then there is cost and the fact that in most cases this goes through a capital budgeting process. But as the industry matures and RTLS demonstrates value, the barriers will drop, and we're already seeing this. In addition, we think there is a lot of room to get more creative in helping health care facilities afford RTLS technology through financing and leasing programs that could be funded through operational budgets. We're also able to provide scalable systems that can grow with a facility's changing needs. Better access will mean more rapid adoption, and we are seeing steadily increasing interest and demand.

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