Asset Tracking System

Asset Tracking System (for healthcare facilities)

Improving treatment outcomes and operational efficiency through an intelligent system for real-time communication with people and assets

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, a provider of communications, networking, and cloud solutions, has announced the release of a new solution within its location services portfolio.

Thanks to cost-effective Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) indoor positioning technology, the location of people and objects equipped with a small tag can be instantly identified and tracked using any mobile device.

BLE Asset Tracking Solution:

• enables accurate asset tracking without the use of additional expensive redundant solutions
• does not affect the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure
• compared to Wi-Fi technology, increases battery efficiency of devices using BLE
• improves return on investment related to equipment, deployment, and operating costs compared to solutions that do not use BLE technology.

The asset tracking system allows healthcare providers to see, in real time, the location of critical and non-critical assets on a floor plan map. These include items such as beds, wheelchairs, infusion pumps, biometric monitors, and more. In addition, staff as well as high-risk patients, including newborns and mobile elderly patients, can be quickly located in real time. Asset tracking also provides information about usage patterns, even when equipment is not in use.

Understanding how assets are used can provide information such as:

• how long people have to wait to access medical equipment
• whether assets remain in storage locations for long periods of time
• how regularly equipment is used
• how much time staff spend searching for people and equipment

Addressing healthcare challenges through asset tracking

Healthcare organizations face a variety of financial, operational, and security challenges every day. Time spent searching for people or equipment may seem insignificant compared to other costs, but lost time means wasted money.

Whether it is an emergency, routine operations, or maintenance, assets must be easily accessible. In addition, understanding where assets are located is essential to ensuring staff safety. Knowing the location of people, including patients and physicians, makes it possible to quickly provide the necessary assistance in an emergency.

Analytical data obtained through asset tracking provides insight into how assets are used and where they are located. This information helps organizations optimize equipment utilization and reduce costs for replacement, rental, and procurement of additional equipment to ensure availability.

Solution components

The following diagram shows the main components of the asset tracking system solution.

OmniAccess Stellar BLE Infrastructure:

• OmniAccess Stellar AP1201BG BLE Gateway and/or OmniAccess Stellar access points with integrated BLE radios receive BLE data from asset tag beacons and transmit location data to the Alcatel-Lucent OmniVista® Cirrus Asset Manager application via Alcatel-Lucent access points through third-party Wi-Fi infrastructure or LAN.
• Self-calibration beacons serve as fixed reference points for gateways, improving tag accuracy.
• Mobile BLE beacon tags (square-shaped or card-style) for people and assets provide a simple and unobtrusive way to track important objects, whether healthcare workers, patients, or equipment. The beacons include built-in accelerometers, which reduce battery power consumption and enable accurate movement tracking. Beacons also support programmable alerts for various purposes. Assigning a tag to an asset is as simple as scanning a QR code using a smartphone application. Each beacon/tag can be assigned attributes such as asset name, department, asset category, next maintenance date, location notifications, and more.

Cloud management

The software suite enables management, search, statistical and analytical data processing, as well as location-based notifications. It stores and organizes data from all access points, allowing for accurate analysis and workflow optimization. It also enables real-time viewing of facility floor plans with all assets and people equipped with beacons/tags, including healthcare staff, patients, security personnel, and temporary workers.

• Asset management: Facility configuration, subscription management; assignment and reassignment of a beacon tag to equipment or personnel; each device can be associated with an image, category, and configurable parameters such as geo-notifications triggered when an object leaves a defined area or geofence.
• Search: Provides real-time asset location data: — simplified search for equipment, specific individuals, or equipment/personnel by category — advanced search with filtering — further advanced search combining multiple selections (asset + service + availability) — optimized adaptive search allowing direct modification and management of configurable fields by selecting relevant icons, such as marking a bed as unavailable or adding a note about a new patient or service.
• Asset inventory: A complete inventory list of asset tags, ensuring that all equipment is accounted for. This simplifies IT tasks related to asset monitoring and maintenance and provides real-time audit data on hospital operations, such as the current battery status of all beacon tags.
  Statistics and analytics: In-depth analysis such as heat maps and geo-notification data help organizations make better decisions. Cloud APIs can be used by third-party systems for deeper analytical insights into business processes.

Mobile application

A simple smartphone application and web interface are essential tools that help track objects and people in real time. They also provide a complete list of people and assets and their respective locations on a floor plan map. In addition, notification systems delivered through the web interface and mobile application ensure that alerts about relevant events, as well as notifications that equipment requires maintenance, are received by the appropriate personnel.

Operating principles

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise equipment tracking components work together with Asset Manager to track the location of people and physical assets using ALE BLE beacons. Stellar BLE Gateways must be installed, which automatically calibrate positioning accuracy using calibration beacons. The density of BLE gateway and self-calibration beacon placement is determined based on the required level of accuracy and the operating environment conditions.

The Stellar BLE Gateway collects data from registered equipment tags required for accurate location determination and transmits it to the Asset Manager software, which precisely calculates the position of people and physical assets based on the built-in positioning engine. Location information is displayed through Asset Manager tools and the mobile application. This information is not publicly accessible and is used solely for accurate location determination and complies with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and similar personal security regulations.

Enhancing the safety of healthcare workers, staff, and patients

The solution ensures the safety of healthcare professionals, staff, and patients based on location awareness when using BLE tags with alerting capabilities.

Example scenario

1. A nurse encounters an emergency involving an aggressive patient or an intruder
2. The nurse presses the emergency assistance button on the BLE tag, badge, or phone, thereby sending an alert to the Asset Manager
3. The Asset Manager sends a notification to security personnel indicating the nurse’s location
4. The nearest security staff arrive at the nurse’s location to provide assistance

Conclusion

Healthcare facilities must provide optimal care while maintaining low operating costs. By knowing the location of patients and staff, as well as asset utilization, you gain tools that improve the efficiency of both people and equipment. Comprehensive analytics, such as historical data analysis and geographic flow management, allow you to optimize and adapt your environment to achieve maximum results, improve the quality of healthcare services, reduce operating costs, and increase satisfaction among patients and healthcare professionals.

If you are interested in receiving a full consultation on products and solutions for implementing an asset tracking system, please contact our office.

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