Stanley Healthcare Solutions and GetWellNetwork Inc. have joined forces to offer hospitals a single solution that utilizes RFID tags, in order to display information to patients regarding staff members attending to them. Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, which opened its doors in October 2012, is the first medical facility to use the integrated solution, which consists of Stanley Healthcare’s real-time location system (RTLS) RFID technology and GetWellNetwork’s Interactive Patient Care (IPC) solution.
The solution became commercially available last year. When a staff member enters a predetermined area, such as a patient’s room, data about that event is received by Stanley Healthcare’s AeroScout Engine software, and is then transmitted to GetWellNetwork’s IPC platform, which displays the worker’s name, title and photograph on a video monitor located in that area or room. Simultaneously, the IPC software stores the transaction, thereby creating an electronic record documenting when an employee visits a particular room, and how long he or she remains at that location. That information can then be shared with the hospital’s patient-management system, enabling the facility to maintain a record of which patient was seen by which personnel.
Stanley Healthcare provides RTLS solutions for tracking assets, patients and employees within hospitals and other health-care facilities. GetWellNetwork sells an interactive digital platform that engages patients by using bedside televisions to provide entertainment, as well as information about their care team, and to enable patients to request service. With the packaged solution in place, hospitals can utilize the RTLS functionality to better provide patients with information regarding the staff members in their hospital room.
Health-care organizations compete to provide a good patient experience, and are often rated and measured in terms of patient satisfaction, according to Steffan Haithcox, Stanley Healthcare Solutions’ marketing VP. Patients can be uncertain regarding which workers have visited them, as well as the services provided. This confusion can also extend to a patient’s family members who wish to know who is caring for their loved one. By using RTLS technology, hospitals such as Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (which has declined to comment for this story) can not only store data about who has entered which room, and how long they were there, but also share that information with patients while a staff member present.
To accomplish this goal, the solution requires highly granular location data, in order to ensure that the system knows when an individual passes through a specific door, as well as in which direction that person was heading. To that end, Stanley Healthcare Solutions is providing a hybrid system that employs a Wi-Fi connection to transmit data, but also includes ultrasound exciters for greater location accuracy.
With the system in place, hospital personnel wear Stanley Healthcare’s AeroScout T2 Wi-Fi tags that transmit a unique ID number via Wi-Fi to nodes throughout the facility. That ID is linked to the individual’s name, photo and responsibilities in the Stanley Healthcare and GetWellNetwork systems. When a worker enters a patient’s room, a Stanley Healthcare ultrasound exciter (installed above the doorway) sends its own unique ID to the tag—which, in turn, forwards that data to the Wi-Fi nodes. AeroScout Engine identifies in which area that specific tag is located, and sends that data to the GetWellNetwork software platform. The information about that employee is then displayed on the TV screen located within the patient’s room.
With the integrated solution, Haithcox says, “patients feel more secure and informed, reducing stress and providing them with an overall improved experience.”
What’s more, Haithcox adds, hospitals that deploy the system can also save the staff time. “The solution helps eliminate confusion and ambiguity,” he states, “which, in turn, reduces the amount of time staff spend answering questions” from patients, family members or other personnel.
According to Haithcox, other hospitals are currently in the process of installing the system, though he declines to identify them. The technology is being sold by both Stanley Healthcare Solutions and GetWellNetwork.