GR Firm Sells Location System To Texas Hospital
Grand Rapids-based Skytron Inc. said Monday that Texoma Medical Center , an acute care hospital in Denison, Texas, had selected a radio frequency-based real time location system from Skytron and California-based Awarepoint.
The system deployment tracks more than 200 medical equpment assets, as well as visiting vendor sales representatives, across a 320,000-square-foot complex.
"Optimizing utilization of our critical mobile assets including IV pumps, telemetry packs, wound vacs, wheelchairs and security tracking of visiting vendor sales representatives were key goals for Texoma Medical Center," said Gregg Stepp, director of supply chain operations at Texoma Medical Center. "RTLS asset tracking and management provides us a better way to deliver care, locate our assets and use them more efficiently, as well as increase security hospital-wide to ensure patient and staff safety."
With easy access to the RTLS system via a desktop icon, all authorized employees can easily locate the nearest available equipment in real-time. Wireless temperature tracking is also provided for all nourishment refrigerators, freezers, drug cabinets, the blood bank, warming cabinets and cold rooms.
"This eliminates nursing having to keep a daily manual temperature log," Stepp said. "In addition, all vendor sales representatives are issued a tracking tag when visiting Texoma Medical Center. This allows our staff to monitor the location of visiting sales representatives throughout the hospital and to notify staff if someone enters a restricted point."
Since RTLS implementation, Texoma Medical Center has experienced numerous documented benefits, including:
* Increased visibility to evaluate actual equipment utilization and reduce capital equipment purchase needs
* Tracking rental equipment and reducing rental expenses
* Dramatically decreasing staff search time for missing equipment
* Accelerated completion of biomedical scheduled preventative maintenance
* Documented improvement in satisfaction of hospital staff
Awarepoint serves hospital customers across the United States through a distribution agreement with Skytron.
Skytron's medical equipment also includes LED surgical lighting, surgical tables, hospital rooms, digital operating room integration and more.
More at www.texomamedicalcenter.net, www.awarepoint.com or www.skytron.us.
(c) 2010, WWJ Newsradio 950. All rights reserved.
