In high-pressure and time-critical environments, such as hospitals, the last thing your staff need to be concerned with is trying to locate the equipment needed to do their jobs efficiently and effectively.
Unfortunately, the reality for many practitioners is that a substantial amount of time is spent searching for vital items during their shifts. This causes unnecessary delays and stress for hospital staff and their patients.
The inadequate monitoring and management of medical assets (such as medical carts, laptops and batteries), can result in huge inefficiencies and costs for misplaced, lost and stolen items. Thankfully, there is a solution that streamlines the management of assets in any medical setting – Digital Asset Tracking.
In this post we will explore the following:
- What is Digital Asset Tracking?
- How Does Asset Tracking Work?
- Benefit 1: Save Time
- Benefit 2: Reduce Unnecessary Spend
- Benefit 3: Increase Patient Well-being and Safety
What is Digital Asset Tracking?
Digital asset tracking is a simple solution in which a ‘tag’ is attached to an item you want to be able to monitor the whereabouts of. It enables staff to quickly and easily discover where a piece of equipment is located, in real time, as well as creating a digital inventory of medical assets in your facility.
Better yet, it is quick and easy to install and can be done by your own team, so there is no need for external IT support.
How Does Asset Tracking Work?
Step 1: Install a reader in each zone that requires monitoring
Readers operate via Bluetooth, which is a wireless form of connection. The reader will link up to any tags on items around them within a 20 metre radius. The more readers you install, the more specific the location results will be and the quicker it will be to find the equipment you're looking for.
Step 2: Tag the equipment that needs tracking
Using cable ties or double-sided sticky tape, you can attach an item tag to each asset. You then need to name and register it so it will be able to be picked up by the readers accurately.
There’s no limit to how many items you can tag, and these assets might include All-In-One PC’s (AIOPC), medical carts, laptops, hot swap batteries – literally any piece of equipment on your ward.
Step 3: Run the Spotto app on any device, from anywhere
Pinpointer uses an app called ‘Spotto’, which is where the information from the readers installed across your facility will be visible. Anyone with access to the system in your setting can view details of tagged item locations via their device. This could be a mobile phone, tablet, desktop or computer on a mobile medical cart.
Benefits of Digital Assets Tracking
Now let’s check out the benefits:
Benefit 1: Save Staff Time
According to a survey of around 1,000 nurses conducted in the UK by publication ‘Nursing Times’, over a third of them spend at least an hour looking for items needed to do their job during an average shift at work.
On top of this, another hour is spent helping colleagues from other wards source items they cannot locate. This disturbingly equates to a possible 40 hours per month, per nurse, trying to hunt down medical equipment.
You can put an end to wasted time on your wards by investing in digital asset tracking for hospitals. Anyone with the connected app installed on their device will be able to locate any tagged item in real time within the facility in just a few clicks.
Benefit 2: Reduce Unnecessary Spend
When you have a digital inventory of items across your facility, you are able to gain a clear understanding and overview where everything is and the number of assets available, in real time.
No more unnecessary spend on replacing misplaced items.
Digital asset tracking can also prevent different departments from procuring the same items as each other, resulting in double up of equipment where it isn’t required.
Pinpointer encourages a coordinated and organised approach to asset management that will save your facility money in the short and long term.
Benefit 3: Increase Patient Well-being and Safety
Rather than wasting valuable time hunting down equipment on the ward, practitioners can now tend more effectively to their patient care.
The distraction of misplaced items is removed, giving staff and patients more time and presence to provide the quality care the patient requires and deserves.
Safety measures are also increased by being able to access necessary equipment promptly, particularly in any emergency situation. Having all assets tagged and readable via the Spotto app makes this possible.
As you can see, the benefits of tracking assets in any healthcare setting clearly outweigh not doing so. Between saving on precious and limited resources (namely time and money), to increasing the level and quality of patient care, it is certainly worth any facility investing in this cost-effective solution.
Ready to Tap and Track Your Medical Assets?
At Debetrek, we are proud to be a supplier of the Pinpointer Asset Tracker. Contact our team today if you are ready to digitise your facility inventory.
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