Many leading hospitals across the United States have selected an integrated workflow automation solution from Sonitor and Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS) to support over 400,000 high acuity patient visits annually. Sonitor's unique indoor positioning system provides real-time location data using ultrasonic signals from personnel and equipment tags to PCTS automatic patient and asset tracking systems.
Sonitor's Ultrasound ID (USID) technology has proven to provide reliable location information with room and sub-room level location accuracy, which the PCTS software uses to visualize the location of resources and the care status of patients through integrated workflow intelligence and interfaces to hospital information systems. To date, the Sonitor and PCTS systems have been integrated in emergency and surgical services departments. Earlier this year, Sonitor was recognized by Frost & Sullivan as the 2008 North American RTLS Emerging Company of the Year.
The Sonitor indoor positioning system provides reliable and accurate room and bay level location data through ultrasound communications without the risk of electromagnetic interference with hospital devices. Wireless tags for patients, staff and movable medical equipment communicate ultrasonic signals to receivers located wherever the information about presence of people and equipment is needed throughout a facility. The ultrasound signal does not require line-of-sight between the tag and the detector for the signal to be transmitted. Signals do not permeate walls, ceilings or floors so location data within a room can be represented accurately.
The real-time location information is communicated to automatic patient and asset tracking software by Patient Care Technology Systems which applies department-specific workflow algorithms to measure location, movement and interactions between patients, staff and equipment in the context of each patient's care progression. This location information together with patient data from other hospital information systems is visualized for caregivers in map and status screen views of patient flow. Additional intelligence interprets the meaning of patient status events and appropriate staff are notified in real-time. The software enables busy caregivers to anticipate and manage their workflows as well as coordinate care more efficiently. Integrated real-time and on-demand reporting tools streamline further analysis on patient flow optimization opportunities.
"Our experience using Sonitor's ultrasound RTLS technology is very favorable," said Tony Marsico, president and CEO of PCTS. "The technology has proven to provide the reliable location input which our workflow solutions require."
The Sonitor indoor positioning system was most recently implemented with the Amelior EDTracker® system by PCTS at Albert Einstein Medical Centerwhere it is being used to streamline patient flow in the hospital's 76,000 census emergency department and level 1 trauma center. In Houston, Texas it was implemented at one of the first freestanding concierge emergency medicine facilities in the nation, Emergency Health Centre-Willowbrook, where it is part of the first ultrasound-enabled emergency department documentation system. Implementations are currently in progress at additional health care facilities in several states.
"We are very pleased to have been the real-time location system of choice by so many facilities for whom accurate and reliable location data is mission critical," said Terry Aasen, president and CEO of Sonitor Technologies. "We look forward to continuing to work with Patient Care Technology Systems whose suite of automatic patient and asset tracking systems lead the health care market in real-time location enabled workflow automation."
