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Q&A with Anne M. Bugge, president and CEO of Sonitor Technologies

September 19, 2016
Anne M. Bugge
Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) have been a valuable emerging technology in healthcare for several years now. Conventionally, it has been utilized for asset/equipment tracking — but today RTLS is playing an increasingly important role in improving hospital workflow.

HCB News talked with Anne M. Bugge, president and CEO of Sonitor Technologies, Inc. about these workflow applications and the promise they hold for more efficient care delivery.

HCB News: When people think about RTLS, asset tracking comes to mind first. Recently we’ve been hearing more about workflow, though. Is this a growing application for the technology?
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Anne M. Bugge: Very much so. We’re working with more and more institutions who are using our technology to manage workflow across the continuum of care.

HCB News: Can you give us instances where it is being used?

AMB: One of the first important workflow use cases was in an outpatient setting at Sanford Moorhead Clinic, which has approximately 50,000 square feet of clinical space. The clinic offers internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, ob/gyn and other specialties.

Sanford engaged us when the Moorhead Clinic was a brand new facility. Their objective from the outset was to use RTLS to improve patient flow and staff workflow, so we worked collaboratively with the architects to design RTLS into their plans. Knowing where a patient is in real time helps the clinic anticipate and effectively plan work, and helps the administration schedule staff efficiently.

The driving goal of more effective flow was to improve the patient experience. The clinic’s leadership felt that by reducing wait times they could increase the amount of time a caregiver spends with a patient, ultimately improving the quality of the visit. Toward that end, RTLS helps caregivers better plan for workload variations that happen routinely in the clinic—people coming in early, people coming in late, missed appointments, and so forth.

HCB News: So they were able to fine-tune workflow based on RTLS. Can you share any scenarios to give us a flavor of that fine-tuning?

AMB: Sure. Based on insights that RTLS analytics enable, if the clinic saves one minute of a nurse’s time per patient per day over the course of one year, it could translate into the necessary time for an LPN to add several hundred more return patient visits. Sanford’s Moorhead Clinic actually conducted a study measuring LPN time and they identified 1000 hours of additional available staff time per year.

HCB News: That’s impressive. We wanted to touch upon RTLS workflow improvements at the department level. We hear most about the ER and OR departments.

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