10X Improvement for Hospitals Using Hyper Location Aware Applications

Step by step, hospitals can bring digitalization and Internet of Things technologies to improve how their business is run to sustainably reduce cost, save time, boost effectiveness and be more profitable.

TL;DR: In this article, I explore how IoT and Hyper Location Aware Applications are transforming healthcare operations. By leveraging technologies from both Fennec and Mutrack—two companies I own—we’ve seen significant improvements in efficiency, cost reduction, and data privacy. From optimizing linen management to enhancing patient transportation, these solutions demonstrate that innovation, when applied strategically, can lead to tenfold improvements in hospital performance. Privacy remains a cornerstone, with features like data encryption, on-premise deployment, and data minimization ensuring that both patient and business-critical information are protected.

Note: Throughout this article, you’ll notice references to both Fennec and Mutrack. As the owner of both companies, I oversee Fennec’s privacy-first real-time location solutions and Mutrack’s innovative products like the Linen Management System and Dispatcher. Together, these companies provide a comprehensive suite of solutions designed to optimize hospital operations and enhance efficiency. This collaboration allows us to address a wide range of challenges in the healthcare environment with precision and innovation.

Why Are Hyper Location Aware Application Important for Hospitals?

IoT and Healthcare have been discussed for a long time, both globally and in Thailand. With automation, speed, and versatile applications, IoT has been adopted as a leading technology in managing various processes directly related to healthcare, such as Remote Patient Monitoring systems and backend support systems like Cold Chain Management.

In this article, I would like to share my experience of applying IoT in a different way in hospitals. This is IoT that accurately identifies the location of people and things. First, let’s take a look at why we need this.

The Current Situation of the Healthcare Industry Worldwide

Even though the hospital business has been growing steadily and strongly over the years, managing a hospital remains a challenging and complex task due to several factors:

High Treatment Costs

The cost of providing healthcare has been rising steadily, driven by factors such as advancements in medical technology, the growing demand for services, and the increasing costs of medical supplies and medications. Hospitals must balance the need to provide high-quality care with the financial constraints imposed by these rising costs. This often leads to tough decisions on where to allocate resources, sometimes at the expense of efficiency.

Management and Administrative Issues

Hospital administration is a complex web of processes involving everything from patient admissions and billing to staff scheduling and compliance with regulatory requirements. Inefficient administrative processes can lead to delays, errors, and increased operational costs, all of which negatively impact patient care and hospital profitability. The lack of integration between different systems within a hospital can further complicate management, leading to inefficiencies and increased workloads for administrative staff.

Asset and Equipment Management

Hospitals are filled with expensive and essential equipment that must be available at the right place and time. However, managing these assets effectively is a significant challenge. Mismanagement can lead to underutilization of equipment, where valuable resources sit idle, or overstocking, where hospitals purchase more equipment than necessary, tying up capital that could be better used elsewhere. Additionally, the inability to quickly locate equipment can delay patient care and reduce staff productivity.

Intense Competition

The healthcare industry is becoming increasingly competitive, with hospitals vying for patients, skilled staff, and financial resources. This competition drives the need for hospitals to operate more efficiently, reduce costs, and offer superior care to attract and retain patients. However, without the right tools and technologies, maintaining a competitive edge can be difficult.

Patient Expectations

Today’s patients are more informed and have higher expectations for the quality and speed of their care. They expect shorter wait times, personalized treatment, remote and mobile experiences, and clear communication. Hospitals that fail to meet these expectations risk losing patients to competitors who can deliver better experiences. This places additional pressure on hospital operations to be more efficient and responsive.

Recruiting and Retaining Quality Staff

The healthcare industry faces a global shortage of skilled professionals, including doctors, nurses, and administrative staff. This shortage makes it difficult for hospitals to maintain adequate staffing levels, leading to burnout among existing staff, reduced quality of care, and higher turnover rates. Recruiting and retaining top talent requires hospitals to offer competitive salaries, positive work environments, and opportunities for professional growth—all of which are challenging without efficient operational systems.

These challenges are exacerbated by the fact that many hospitals still rely on outdated systems and processes that are not designed to handle the complexities of modern healthcare. As a result, operational inefficiencies and waste continue to be significant issues, hindering the ability of hospitals to provide the best possible care while maintaining financial stability.

Opeartional Wastes are Real and Increasing.

Let’s look at an interesting number that highlights the potential for improving internal hospital processes. It’s estimated that the losses from managing the Healthcare business in the U.S. amount to nearly $1 trillion per year, with the highest proportion coming from complex administrative processes, accounting for about 25%. Do these figures sound familiar?

• The utilization rate of medical equipment is only around 30-40%. In other words, with better management, if we reduce the number of IV pumps in hospitals by half today, hospitals would still be able to maintain the same standard of service.
• Nurses spend 72 minutes per shift searching for the equipment they need. Instead of doing activities that add values to patients and business, they have to waste around 12% of their precious time working on low value tasks.
• Whooping 121 minutes is the time patients spend in the entire process from start to finish, most of which is consumed by paperwork and waiting for departmental transfers.
• Hospitals can lose up to $10,000 a month of linen without noticing it due to ineffective asset control. Not to mention that most hosptials tend to overstock their linens by a factor of 2-3 times just because they are too afraid of shortages.

These numbers significantly impact hospital management costs and directly affect the profits hospitals can achieve each year. Be honest to yourself, you will realize that you are losing money literally every second of running your hospital. The bigger your hospital is, the more money you are losing due to more wastes.

But the good news is you are also in a perfect position to start thinking about a better future for your hospital. If you embrace them wisely, digital technologies can help turn things around for you – innovatively, sustainably, and safely. All you need is an open-minded version of you (of course) and the right transformation strategy.

The Right Kind of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation in hospitals can come in two forms. First is to help you generate more revenues. The kind of technologies that directly involve how you provide medical services. For example, telemedicine platforms can expand your reach, while advanced diagnostic tools can enhance the accuracy and speed of patient care.

Secondly, it transforms how your backend and supportive processes are managed. This kind of transformation brings your cost down significantly by continuously eliminating waste. The Internet of Things accelerates this transformation in a very efficient way. Imagine the potential savings and improvements:

• Reduce asset losses by 10 times within a year: By leveraging real-time tracking, hospitals can dramatically reduce the occurrence of lost or misplaced assets, saving significant costs.
• Increase asset utilization rate from 30% to 70%: Better asset visibility ensures that equipment is fully utilized and rotated, reducing the need for excess inventory.
• Reduce asset rental and maintenance costs by 30%: Optimized use of existing assets lowers the need for rentals and reduces wear and tear, leading to lower maintenance costs.
• Reduce asset inventory by at least 10% in year 2: Efficient inventory management and data analytics capabilities can decrease the amount of stock held on hand, freeing up capital for other uses.
• Centralize and implement an asset pool policy: Centralizing asset management allows for better allocation and reduces redundancy across departments.
• Increase staff productivity by 25 times from day 1: The right technology helps completely elimiate manual and labor intensive work such as counting stocks by hand, searching for equipment or handling paperwork.
• Reduce response time of field staff by 90%: Real-time location data helps assign tasks to the nearest available staff, improving response times dramatically.
• Reduce decision-making time by 90%: Access to real-time data empowers quicker and more informed decision-making throughout the operations from locating assets, and staff, reallocating equipment with confidence.
• Boost patient/customer satisfaction rate by 20%: Efficient operations translate to shorter wait times and better patient experiences via efficient patient transportation services, patient escorting services and more.
• Reduce patient waiting time by 30%: Efficient scheduling and resource management in terms of personnel, equipment, documents, and venues, cut down on unnecessary delays.
• Get rid of paperwork by more than 90%: Digital records reduce the need for paper, speeding up processes and reducing errors.
• Gain real-time and quality data for further analysis: Continuous data collection enables advanced analytics, leading to ongoing improvements in operations.

It is a promise land. What we need to reach that point is a set of technologies and applications that work seamlessly together, specifically for hospitals.

We need to drive strategic change by integrating technologies like Real Time Locating System, which is real-time positioning technology, with Internet of Things, Mobile and Cloud Computing, Big Data, and Machine Learning.

“What good can these technologies do for me?” – This question pops up in your mind.

The Rise of Hyper Location Aware Applications for Hospitals

On the surface, the collaboration of all these elements may seem simple. It is a combination of technologies that gives you just four things – What, Who, Where, and When.

But the real value comes when we turn this basic information into real-time data that is easy to access, contextual, and tells a story. All of this will help you understand what’s happening in the hospital in ways you never have before:

• Where is my IV pump? – In the dialysis department 12 minutes ago
• How long has this patient been waiting at this station? – They’ve been here for 32 minutes
• How many beds am I having at my department? – You have 10 normal beds, and 4 convertible beds.
• Which porter is closest to the ICU? – Mr. Pornpol is the nearest, about 128 meters away
• How many times has this equipment been used this week? – This ultrasound machine has been used 14 times
• When did this patient arrive at the orthopedic department? – She was brought here at 9:14 AM by Mr. Wittaya

Collecting and accessing this data is made possible by something called Hyper Location Aware Applications, or a set of software developed to create, detect, record, and analyze real-time location data to maximize its benefits.

Let’s take a look at a slice of the everyday processes in a hospital and imagine how real-time location data or Hyper Location Aware Applications can play a big role:

Linen Management

RFID helps hospitals manage their linen stock intelligently. Save time, reduce cost, and losses. At the same time, track linen usage in the hospitals.

• Scan a huge amount of check-in and check-out linen and categorize the types of linen accurately.
• Set par values of linen required in each department to well control and manage the necessary linen stock.
• Count the cycle of linen wash and linen life cycle to plan future linen order appropriately.
• Replenish linen stock via the system’s suggestion of the types and the number of linen for each department.
• Track linen at laundry factories in real-time and see overdue linen. Generate lost linen report with ease.

Patient Transportation

An automatic job dispatching solution for internal service teams. Using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology for location identification to improve overall journey for requestors, porters, interpreters, messengers, and patients to reduce wait time, and increase staff productivity.

• Assign the task appropriately via mobile application by considering the present location and porter’s availability.
• Keep track with the tasks through the Web. Notify when a porter picks up and escorts the patient to the destination.
• Access a complete task history of every porter daily, weekly and monthly via porter profile page and reports.
• Analyze the time spent in every step for one task of a porter and record it for staff’s evaluation.
• Evaluate profoundly to improve workflow strategically and compare the new task and the finished task every day

Movable Medical Equipment Management

Using IoT equipment attached on medical devices, combined with RTLS, hospitals can track the precise location and status of equipment in real-time, ensuring that assets are always available when and where they are needed.

• Track various kinds of movable devices such as infusion pumps, wheelchairs and beds.
• Find assets quickly by the type of the asset, location, status and the cycle of maintenance.
• Set the maintenance cycle for each type of asset to prevent technical asset problems.
• Keep track of the asset utilization rates to compare with the desired usage goal to increase utilization rates.
• Access the latest location and time of the asset usage. Count the number and the types of asset in each location.

Infection Control Procedure

Using IoT-enabled devices and RTLS, hospitals can automatically record and track the movement and interactions of staff, patients, and equipment throughout the facility.

• Record automatically the contacts between staff; where they went, whom they interacted with and for how long.
• Trace back to see the detailed contacts based on staff and locations to identify who is risky to be infectious.
• Update staff status when infectious or being quarantined to effectively trace back to see all contacts.
• Generate a complete exposure report to see 360-degree view of who has contacted with who and from where.
• Monitor an infection situation via a beautiful dashboard with real-time and historical stats

There are many more applications for hospitals. When IoT technology works with a Real Time Locating System to create Hyper Location Aware Applications, it is the most effective pairing, especially in the complex and varied processes found in hospital environments.

Hyper Location Aware Applications for Hospitals in Action

In this section, we’ll explore how Hyper Location Aware Applications are being utilized in real-world hospital settings, specifically focusing on the Linen Management System and the Patient Transportation System. These examples demonstrate how hospitals can achieve significant improvements in efficiency, cost savings, and patient care by leveraging advanced Internet of Things and location-aware technologies.

Linen Management Solution with RFID

Effective linen management is crucial for hospital operations, impacting everything from patient comfort to infection control. Traditional linen management systems often involve manual processes, leading to inefficiencies, inaccuracies, and unnecessary costs. Here’s how a Hyper Location Aware Application can revolutionize this process:

• Real-Time Tracking with RFID: Every piece of linen is tagged with an RFID chip, allowing it to be tracked throughout the hospital and even during transit to external laundry facilities. This real-time tracking ensures that linen is always accounted for, reducing the likelihood of loss or theft.
• Automated Inventory Management: The system automatically updates linen inventory levels as items are checked in and out. This helps ensure that each department has the correct amount of linen at all times, preventing both shortages and overstocking.
• Lifecycle Monitoring: The system tracks the wash and usage cycles of each linen item, allowing for predictive maintenance. Linen that is nearing the end of its useful life can be flagged for replacement before it fails, ensuring that only high-quality items are used in patient care.
• Cost Reduction and Efficiency Gains: By automating and optimizing linen management, hospitals can significantly reduce labor costs associated with manual counting and tracking. Additionally, the system’s ability to prevent loss and extend the lifecycle of linen items leads to direct cost savings.
• Compliance and Reporting: The system generates detailed reports on linen usage, inventory levels, and lifecycle data. These reports can be used for regulatory compliance, budgeting, and operational improvement.

In a partnership with one of the largest private hospitals in Southeast Asia, the integration of RFID and Hyper Location Aware Applications led to substantial gains:

• 25X Throughput Increase: Staff were able to scan over 5,000 linen pieces per hour, compared to just 200 by hand.
• 10X Reduction in Lost Linens: Enhanced tracking made it easier to monitor linen movement, reducing losses significantly.
• 7X Reduction in Purchasing Budget: Data-driven insights into optimal inventory levels led to substantial reductions in linen purchases.
• 10% Inventory Size Reduction: Continuous data collection provided the hospital with the confidence to reduce linen inventory by 10% without compromising care.
• Labor Efficiency Gains: With 2 Full-Time Employees (FTEs) reassigned to more valuable tasks, the hospital saw increased productivity and operational focus.

I want to elaborate more on how we help hospitals reduce linen inventory by utilizing collected data from the hyper location aware application. With continuous data collection, the system provides detailed insights into linen usage patterns across different departments. For example, it can identify which departments are using more linen than others, at what times, and how quickly linens are cycled through. This granular level of detail allows hospital administrators to understand the actual demand for linen in each area of the hospital.

The findings from a mid-size hospital who joined our two-month trial program were quite interesting. It reaffirms wastes in linen operations are real. Let’s take a look at the first finding – a comparison of sent and used linens across various departments.

Here are the key insights:

• Overstocking by 17%: On average, departments received 17% more linens than were actually needed. This over-supply not only leads to wasted resources but also unnecessary costs for the hospital.
• Discrepancy in Par Values: The Par Values, or the target number of linens that should be available, are vastly overestimated. In some departments, such as the Outpatient Department (OPD) and X-ray, the ratio of sent linens to Par Values was as high as 13 times, indicating a severe overstocking issue.
• Excessive Linen Inventory: The Operating Room (OR) had an excessive rate of 22%, while the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) saw 18% of its linen go unused. This suggests that current inventory levels are far above what is actually required for efficient operation.
• Substantial Reductions Possible: Departments like the Special Clinic had a staggering 50% of linens sent go unused, while Hemodialysis 3 had a 20% excessive rate. These figures highlight the potential for significant inventory reductions without impacting patient care.

The next finding shows how the hospital could optimize its linen inventory by adjusting Par Values (the target stock levels for linens). The table below represented how Blankets can better be managed.

• Overall Reduction: The total number of linen items in the hospital could be reduced from 927 to 622, resulting in a reduction of 305 items, or a 33% decrease in overall linen inventory.
• Significant Savings: If the linen inventory value is $2 million USD, reducing the inventory by 33% could save the hospital approximately $660,000 USD annually.

The last finding represents the average duration that each type of linen remains in a department before being returned, sent to laundry, or moved elsewhere. If you believe that assets will be beneficial only when they are in used. This finding poses a question about how much more utilization could be achieved if the duration each linen stays in a department is reduced to around 1.5 days. It suggests that by reducing the time linens spend in departments, the hospital could potentially increase the utilization rate of its linen inventory, making the system more efficient.

Wide Range of Duration: The chart shows that some linens stay in departments for significantly longer periods than others, with some remaining in place for over a month (up to 37 days), which indicates a low turnover rate for these items.

Optimization Potential: The average time that linens remained in departments varied significantly, with some staying for over a month. By reducing this duration to around 1.5 days, the hospital could increase linen turnover and reduce the need for a large inventory.

High Variability: The data revealed significant inefficiencies in how linen was managed and distributed among departments, with durations ranging from 15 hours to over 41 days.

The findings from this hospital trial clearly demonstrate that integrating RFID technology, Hyper Location Aware Applications, and real-time data is not just beneficial but crucial for modern hospitals. These technologies enable hospitals to shift from reactive to proactive management, improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing patient care.

Indoor Job Dispatching System with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

Patient transportation is a critical component of hospital operations, directly impacting patient flow, care quality, and overall efficiency. Delays or inefficiencies in this process can lead to extended wait times, increased patient anxiety, and a bottleneck in hospital workflows, ultimately affecting the quality of care provided.

Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLS) and Hyper Location Aware Applications (HLAP) offer significant potential to revolutionize patient transportation within hospitals. By leveraging these technologies, hospitals can:

• Enhance Efficiency: RTLS provides real-time tracking of patients and staff, allowing the system to automatically assign transportation tasks to the nearest available porter or staff member. This reduces wait times and ensures that patients are moved swiftly to their next point of care.
• Improve Resource Allocation: Hyper Location Aware Applications enables hospitals to monitor the status and location of all transportation resources in real-time. This visibility allows for better coordination and utilization of resources, ensuring that the right personnel are in the right place at the right time.
• Increase Patient Satisfaction: By reducing delays and ensuring timely transportation, patients experience a smoother, more predictable journey through the hospital. This not only improves their overall experience but also enhances their trust in the care process.
• Data-Driven Improvements: With continuous data collection and analysis, hospitals can identify bottlenecks, optimize routes, and adjust staffing levels based on actual demand, leading to ongoing improvements in transportation efficiency.

Our solution – Dispatcher brings a Grab-like experience to hospital operations, providing a seamless and efficient way to manage internal service requests designed for requestors, porters, and patients. Porters carry mobile phones with our app installed. This app continuously emits a BLE signal for identity verification, which can be detected by network devices like Access Points and Bluetooth Gateways. The location and identity data of the staff tell us who is where in real-time. So, when a task request comes in, the system can instantly and appropriately match the task with the right person based on the distance from the pick-up point to the patient, as well as other factors like the workload and skills of each staff member.

Our Dispatcher solution has already made a significant impact in one of Thailand’s largest hospitals, where it has been deployed across multiple branches. Handling an impressive 1,500 patient transportation jobs daily, the solution has streamlined operations and demonstrated its value in a high-demand environment.

While specific performance metrics from this deployment are still being gathered, the hospital’s long-term use of Dispatcher underscores its effectiveness in managing large volumes of tasks, improving efficiency, and enhancing patient care. This real-world application showcases the potential of Dispatcher and Hyper Location Aware Applications to revolutionize hospital workflows on a large scale.

Platform First, Products Later

The examples provided earlier are just two instances of how Internet of Things (IoT) and Hyper Location Aware Applications can transform hospital processes. However, the potential for Digital Transformation in healthcare is vast, and the benefits extend far beyond these initial applications. Based on my extensive experience, here are some crucial tips for developing or selecting technology in this space:

Unified Platform

One System, One Infrastructure: Hospitals should seek a central platform that integrates various processes into a single system. This ensures consistency, security, and privacy across the organization, reduces complexity, and provides a seamless user experience. A unified platform is the foundation that supports all other technological advancements.

Reliable Hardware

Multi-Purpose and Secure: The hardware used must be secure, reliable, and capable of performing multiple functions. It should be robust enough to handle the demands of a hospital environment while offering excellent after-sales support to ensure ongoing reliability and performance.

Accessible Technology

Economical and Practical: The technology chosen should be “just enough” to solve the problems at hand—innovative yet practical. It should not be so advanced that it becomes difficult to implement or so expensive that it strains the hospital’s budget. The goal is to find solutions that offer real value without unnecessary complexity or cost.

Real-Time data

Speed in Decision-Making: In today’s fast-paced healthcare environment, real-time data is essential. Hospitals should prioritize systems that provide immediate insights into what is happening, who is involved, where events are occurring, and when they happen. This real-time visibility is crucial for making informed decisions quickly.

Process Automation

Eliminate Manual Work: Automation should be a key feature of any new technology. By replacing manual processes with automated systems, hospitals can improve efficiency, reduce errors, and free up staff to focus on more critical tasks. The ability to access and extract data easily is also vital for continuous improvement.

Flexibility

Mobility and Accessibility: In the modern world, mobile applications are indispensable. They provide the flexibility needed to access services and information without obstacles, significantly speeding up processes and improving overall efficiency.

Team Empowerment

Decisions at the Edge: Empowering staff to make decisions at the point of care, where they have the most context and understanding, is essential. Technology should support this decentralized decision-making, enabling quicker and more effective responses to real-time situations.

Performance Measurement

Track, Measure, Enhance: Finally, it’s crucial to have systems in place that can track and measure performance. This data should be used strategically to enhance results, offering rewards and recognition based on measurable outcomes. Continuous performance measurement is key to driving ongoing improvement and maintaining high standards.

Closing Thoughts

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare is no longer a matter of “if” but “when.” Those who act swiftly will gain a significant advantage, not just by achieving a modest 10% improvement, but by potentially transforming their entire organization. Hyper Location Aware Applications offer the opportunity to enhance work efficiency tenfold, but this potential can only be realized with a strategic approach. By embracing these technologies thoughtfully and proactively, healthcare organizations can not only reduce costs and increase profits but also set new standards for operational excellence and patient care.

In the end, it’s not just about the technology—It’s about solving problems. Investing in innovation will cost you, but the return is massive and enduring. Yes, it’s a risky move, but consider the alternative: doing nothing. In a world that’s changing faster than ever, standing still isn’t an option—you either innovate or face a slow, painful decline.

For those of you who are true leaders, we believe you already know what needs to be done. You’re not just looking for a quick fix; you’re seeking lasting solutions that will propel your organization forward.

Are you ready to take the leap? Let’s embark on this journey together and turn challenges into opportunities for growth and success through Hyper Location Aware Applications.