RTLS: Seeing Is Believing For Pediatric Hospital

An enterprise-wide pilot convinces a pediatric hospital to implement an RTLS (real-time location system) for asset tracking.

How's this for standing behind your product? When the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE, asked Skytron for a limited pilot of its asset-tracking solution, the supplier countered with a surprising proposal. "We asked Skytron if they would consider doing a small pilot for us," says Ann Oddo Altoe, Assistant Chief of Information Technology for Nemours/Delaware Valley. "Could we do a couple of nursing units and see how it went? They said, ‘We'll do a pilot for you in all million square feet of the hospital, and if doesn't meet your objectives, we'll pull it out.'"

For Altoe and her team, the decision was obvious. "We felt fairly comfortable they had a good product if they were willing to go out on a limb."

For its part, Skytron wanted to show how easy it is to install its RTLS (Real-time Location Solution) asset-tracking technology, which is compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Since the technology doesn't tap Wi-Fi networks, deployment consists of plugging in sensors to the AC current, attaching tags to the devices being tracked, and installing monitoring software. The need for new wiring and routing devices is very limited, which translates to considerably lower deployment costs.

As anticipated, Nemours kept the system after seeing it in action. It was affordable and brought much-needed change without disrupting patient care. "We were looking for something we could quickly install and easily deploy," says Altoe.

Solving A Common Problem
Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children is a 200-bed, 1 million-square-foot pediatric hospital that has treated children in Delaware for more than 70 years. The hospital is part of the Nemours Foundation, based in Jacksonville, Fla., and also operates clinics in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Access This Content To Read This Article In Its Entirety.