Every day, thousands of patients, physicians and researchers travel throughout the miles of hallways crisscrossing the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (NIHCC), located in Bethesda, Md. The clinical center, the nation’s largest hospital focused on clinical research, is now offering a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon-based app that helps those individuals navigate the large facility.
The NIHCC employs 2,500 staff members and treats 10,000 patients annually. This summer, the hospital launched the beacon system using Connexient‘s MediNav digital wayfinding and indoor navigation platform, which helps both patients and personnel get their bearings as they go about their work or visit patients.
The new TakeMeThere app, available at the Google Play and iTunes websites, makes finding anything from a physician to a cup of coffee easier for anyone with a smartphone.
The hospital began offering the free app in January 2016 as a soft launch. Now, says Eric Cole, the chief of NIHCC’s Office of Administrative Management, it is promoting the app to all patients and staff members.
The Clinical Center, commonly known as the House of Hope, includes the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center and ambulatory care research facility, along with a new addition, the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center. Collectively, the facility, also called Building 10, boasts a total of approximately 6,000 rooms.
“Part of the challenge of navigating the hospital,” Cole says, “is that the structural addition to the original building involved a new room-numbering system that was different than the original structure’s numbering system.” Even before the renumbering took place, he explains, “it was quite easy for a patient to get overwhelmed at the size of the facility and get lost.”
The NIHCC wanted a solution primarily to help patients map out their routes, but it knew that a wayfinding app could also benefit employees who needed to quickly locate offices, meeting rooms or departments. In addition, with an indoor location system using BLE beacons in place, even if patients lacked a smartphone or did not want to download the app, staff members onsite would have access to the app and could easily help a patient requiring directions.
Having a variety of options for patients and personnel is crucial, says Geoff Halstead, Connexient’s chief product officer, since people have unique needs when seeking directions. Some may not want to use their phones, for instance—they might prefer to utilize a paper map (users can print a map from the web version of the app before arriving) or a screen (MediNav software can run on touchscreen kiosks, though NIHCC opted against use of kiosks within its facility), or to seek directions from an individual accessing data on the app.
“Of course, we still have other resources available if an app isn’t their thing,” Cole states, “such as friendly hospitality department staff who can personally guide folks, as well as lots of maps and signage”
The idea for the wayfinding app, Cole says, originated in 2015 with an NIH manager who works in Building 10. A nurse working in the building came up with the name TakeMeThere.
Connexient has been offering location-based content for about two years, Halstead says, and its BLE-enabled Navigator version of MediNav since 2015. The company partners with Google Maps to offer location-based data on a virtual map that users can utilize to identify where they are in proximity to other places or objects. In that way, for instance, a person can employ an app using the MediNav content-management system to identify not only when he has arrived at a particular building, such as a health-care center, but also which door he should use and where he is located in proximity to that doorway.
The TakeMeThere app also provides assistance before a visitor parks his car. The Parking Planner function within the app enables that individual to identify the best parking spots even before he begins his trip there. He can also plan his visit based on what he will be doing at the facility, and use the app’s “My Places” function to add and store staff and location “favorites.”
Once the user arrives on site, MediNav “sensor fusion software” on the phone positions that person on the app’s indoor map by detecting beacons installed at the parking lot with other readings, such as the phone’s Wi-Fi signals and the building’s microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) signatures. If the user is running the app, the software can provide him with appropriate location-based content, such as a welcome screen reminding him to save his parking spot. The app will show the visitor his location on a map of the parking lot, along with where the best parking spaces are, and enable him to use the “My Car” function to save that spot’s location once he has parked.
The MediNav sensor fusion software in the app can then continue to detect other beacons installed in the facility as the visitor enters the building and navigates his way toward his appointment location. The system’s Staff Filter enables patients to locate the office locations of employees working on campus or around the country.
The technology enables a user to view a blue dot indicating his position, based on the phone’s BLE functionality, with an accuracy of approximately 2 to 3 meters (6.6 to 9.8 feet). The data refreshes every second.
Workers are using the system as well. For instance, the app’s housekeeping function enables employees to report cleaning or maintenance statuses, such as a piece of furniture requiring repair, an equipment item’s maintenance requirements, or a room being ready for cleaning. “The mechanism we created allows anyone to report an issue,” Cole explains. “We can capture the location of the area needing attention and attach a picture with their submission all through their smartphone.”
NIHCC has created plain-language synonyms to make it easier for patients to find what they seek, Cole adds. For instance, if someone searched within the TakeMeThere app for the term “leukemia,” he or she would find results for both the hematology and oncology clinics. A person searching for “coffee” would find results for all cafeterias and snack shops. “We also configured location-based alerts so that patients know when they enter a staff-only area,” he notes. Anyone who did so would hear an audible alert on their phone.
The app’s functionality is now being expanded on the clinic’s campus beyond Building 10. For instance, Cole says, “we’ve identified hundreds of points of interest both on and off the NIH campus, such as ATMs, bike racks, local post offices and grocery stores.” These areas were added based on patient input.
The clinic is considering tailoring the app to enable a user to designate whether he is a patient, visitor or staff member seeking directions. With that functionality, the app could then present content relevant to that person’s needs. If the app does what the clinic hopes it will do, the amount of time that patients take reaching their destination will be reduced, patients will arrive at their visits on time and patient satisfaction will increase.
Connexient uses beacon hardware supplied by a variety of providers, Halstead says, such as Pole Star.