Hospitals are complicated environments with expensive equipment, complex care coordination needs and patients traversing between multiple departments daily. There is also tremendous potential for patient frustration or critical delays due to operational inefficiencies. BLE beacon innovation looks set to transform hospital workflows on multiple fronts through real-time location visibility and analytics.
Attaching small, wireless BLE beacon tags to valuable hospital assets like wheelchairs, defibrillators and medicine carts allows administrators to view availability and track movements across floors with ease. Gateways covering key zones reliably scan asset tag beacons to provide a live inventory dashboard reflecting item locations down to the room-level. Automated check-out systems prevent losses while location insights optimize planning.
Patient beacon wristbands similarly help streamline admissions, discharges and inter-department transfers through positioning integrated with health records. Caregivers can instantly access medical history as patients enter proximity while administrators monitor departmental bed occupancy balances and waiting times to smooth patient flow.
In emergency rooms, the ability to track patient movements through admittance, triage, diagnostics and discharge phases enables accurate predictive analytics on throughput benchmarks to spur preemptive resource allocation. Surgery turnover automation and post-op pathway compliance also stands to improve tremendously.
As hospital technologies advance, BLE beacons promise an integral role right from admissions to discharge by intersecting critical workflows with location intelligence for actionable visibility, predictive insights and automation possibilities. The benefits span enhanced experiences, operational efficiencies and oversight for future-proof care delivery.
