Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering Inc., announced that it has signed an agreement with Awarepoint Corporation to co-market the companies' technologies for providing real-time workflow visibility and automation. PCTS will utilize Awarepoint's patented "plug and track" Real-time Awareness System (RTAS) for PCTS' enterprise workflow visibility solutions. Earlier this year, the companies integrated their technologies to support surgical tray tracking at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, Illinois. Awarepoint serves its hospital customers through a distribution partnership with Skytron.
Since 1999, PCTS has pioneered the use of real-time locating systems (RTLS) to automatically track patients and assets in emergency and surgical services departments in order to more efficiently and safely manage patient flow.
Today, PCTS provides enterprise-wide workflow visibility through its advanced Amelior 360? enterprise platform which aggregates and synthesizes patient data from RTLS and hospital information systems. Workflow business intelligence measures location, movement and interactions between patients, staff and equipment among other variables to identify real-time patient and asset status. Mobile caregivers access patient information relative to their role or clinical unit in order to manage their workflow more efficiently. This has resulted in significant improvements in operating performance for complex clinical workflow environments enabling increased capacity, improved staff and patient satisfaction and higher revenues.
Awarepoint provides location awareness through a ZigBee-based wireless sensor network utilizing sensors which are deployed in standard electrical outlets. This 100% wireless infrastructure enables quick installation without disrupting patient care throughout the entire enterprise. Awarepoint tags broadcast low power radio messages which enable users to quickly locate specific equipment or people and provide information about their movement and status. The Awarepoint RTLS network provides true hospital-wide awareness -- not only room-level, but persistent accuracy across the entire hospital footprint.
The companies plan to initially align their sales and marketing resources to help health care facilities improve their utilization of movable medical equipment in support of clinical workflows and manage their assets for regulatory compliance, patient safety and cost reduction opportunities.
The first joint tracking implementation between PCTS and Awarepoint was successfully launched in 2009 at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, a 340-bed acute care facility located in Downers Grove, Illinois. The hospital has implemented Awarepoint's sterilizable tag, the first such tag in the market, to track surgical trays between sterile processing and their 35,000 square foot, 15-suite surgical services department. Staff uses the Amelior ORTracker perioperative workflow software from PCTS to locate trays and manage tray and tag assets.
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