Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, Inc., announced that Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC) has selected the company's Amelior Tracker system to automatically track and manage hospital assets throughout their 4.1 million square foot campus. This represents the largest known real-time location system (RTLS) implementation in a healthcare facility worldwide. PCTS will integrate a hybrid RTLS infrastructure from CenTrak. WFUBMC facility services provider ARAMARK Healthcare will manage and support the installation ongoing.
WFUBMC, one of the nation's preeminent academic medical centers, is an integrated health care system that operates 1,056 acute care, rehabilitation, long-term, and psychiatric care beds, outpatient services, and community health and information centers. The Medical Center has 22 subsidiary or affiliate hospitals and operates more than 100 outreach activities throughout the Winston-Salem region. In 2008, WFUBMC was recognized as one of the nation's "Most Wired" hospitals.
The first segment of the enterprise-wide asset management installation will include monitoring the temperature of patient medications and tracking IV pumps at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, WFUBMC's primary clinical facility. Additionally, all stretchers and wheel chairs will be tagged supporting the WFUBMC's patient transport process Six-Sigma team. Future stages under consideration include real-time patient flow management for emergency, surgery and radiology departments.
The Amelior Tracker solution is part of the Amelior Enterprise Visibility Suite which comprises department to facility-wide software solutions and services designed to more efficiently and safely orchestrate patient care through the real-time visualization of patient flow. Hospitals can scale their implementations by the entities they wish to track (movable medical equipment, patients, staff), purpose (asset management, patient flow, infection control) and by the scope of hospital workflow (acute care, inpatient floors, outpatient services, enterprise-wide).
The web-based Amelior tracking software visualizes workflow by automatically identifying the location of people and equipment and the care progression of patients. Location information is generated by integrating with a facility's choice of RTLS. The PCTS software is compatible across all locating technologies and the company assists clients in selecting the optimal RTLS for their workflow needs. Workflow algorithms within the software interpret the meaning of location, movement and interactions between patients, staff and equipment to alert caregivers to patient care milestones as they occur. Additional interfaces to hospital and department information systems and communication devices create a centralized workflow communication and management portal that eliminates the need for manual updates and delays caused by a lack of information.
At WFUBMC, PCTS will implement a hybrid RTLS network from business partner CenTrak, with whom PCTS announced a strategic marketing agreement earlier this year. CenTrak's InTouchCare differs from legacy technologies in its combined use of a patented new generation of infrared (Gen2IR) and RFID. CenTrak's battery powered monitors (over five years of battery life) transmit a unique room number using Gen2IR, which is received by any tag in that room. The tag communicates the room number and its own unique ID via RF to the InTouchCare Location Server using a hospital's existing wired or Wi-Fi network, where it can be accessed in real-time by hospital personnel. Like light, Gen2IR will not pass through walls and it does not suffer from traditional infrared line-of-sight limitations.
"After a comprehensive, multi-year RTLS marketplace review, we chose Patient Care Technology Systems because of their proven experience in implementing scalable, workflow-intelligent solutions that can meet our demanding current and future needs," said Tony Marra CHFM, director of facility services at WFUBMC. "Their ability to integrate the right locating technology with software that can be tailored to manage diverse workflows at the significant scale that we plan to automate, made PCTS with CenTrak the only choice for our health system."
"We are extremely pleased to welcome Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center as the newest member of our growing family of health care facilities," said Tony Marsico, president and CEO of PCTS. "Real-time location enabled workflow automation offers tremendous cost savings and revenue potential to hospitals seeking to improve resource utilization and improve the efficiency of key service lines. WFUBMC's workflow automation vision is one of the most significant examples to date of the healthcare marketplace's recognition of the potential scope that is possible."
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