In this article for IoT Insider, Rom Eizenberg, CRO and Head of Product Innovation at Kontakt.io shares how AI-powered RTLS is transforming hospitals
The typical patient journey in a hospital that begins with admittance and ends with discharge is afflicted by inefficiency, delays, and uncertainty: cumbersome forms, insurance nuances, triage, staffing issues, and long wait times.
Many of these problems stem from challenges in orchestrating care – properly aligning limited resources to optimise care delivery – that drive up system-wide costs and cause clinician burnout and patient dissatisfaction.
The major culprit? Data silos. Health system leaders do not have a full perspective of the intricacies of the end-to-end patient journey, and, as a result, do not have the insights and understanding to drive improvements in care orchestration that yield efficiencies and streamline operational processes.
On average, US hospitals have between 50 to 100 different technology systems in their tech stack. Consequently, data frequently remains untapped and unused, as opportunities to advance care and efficiency go unrealised.
However, some hospitals are overcoming these problems with a mix of technologies, such as real-time location solutions (RTLS), machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI). This new approach enables health system leaders to uncover previously inaccessible insights and opportunities to transform hospital operations and patient experiences.
Creating a foundational layer of operational data
This new approach to care orchestration helps solve healthcare’s misalignment between data and care delivery. It starts with creating a foundation layer that collects real-time data about patients, staff, and medical equipment, including: location, motion, and interactions.
Armed with this information, health system leaders and clinicians can better orchestrate resources and processes: identifying discharge barriers to reduce length of stay, predicting bottlenecks before they happen, and solving issues or workarounds before they become real problems.
With this new ability to coordinate care operations and clinical workflows, health systems can create advancements in:
Resource allocation sharing: Increase utilisation, save money, and improve outcomes by increasing the amount of resources shared between departments.
Bed turnaround times: Increase capacity and reduce down-times for hospital beds with forecasted resource allocation and data-driven recommendations.
Staff satisfaction: Locating equipment more easily ensures that supplies are ready and available while reducing stress on staff.
Patient experience: As routine, manual tasks are automated, front-line clinical employees gain more time and bandwidth for face-to-face interactions with patients.
Health outcomes: With electronic health records better integrated into the operational context of clinical workflows, health systems can further tailor care to individual patients.
An RTLS success story
A national health system in the US used RTLS to improve operations and staff and patient experiences. With its operating margins in decline, the health system was increasingly under pressure to modernise care delivery, increase operational efficiency, and improve caregiver and patient experience.
The health system leveraged RTLS asset management to transform supply chain services, eliminating waste and streamlining asset management. What they also discovered was that the asset management solution helped fight caregiver burnout by ensuring nurses have the resources they need to deliver exceptional patient care.
Ultimately, they realised a 10x annual return on an investment of $40 million, a 75% reduction in rentals, and a 14.5% reduction in nurses’ time searching for devices.
Conclusion
Other industries such as hospitality and supply chain management have seen significant improvements in operations as a result of adopting emerging technologies such as RTLS and AI. It’s time for healthcare to do the same.

Rom Eizenberg joined Kontakt.io as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) in 2020. Prior to joining Kontakt.io, Rom was the VP of Global Sales at Bluvision – HID, part of Assa Abloy, where he led sales and marketing following the acquisition of IoT startup Bluvision by HID. Throughout his career, Rom has led enterprise software commercial organisations from Fortune 500 to tech startups, twice as a founder. Educated in computer science and international economics, Rom holds three registered patents.
Author: Rom Eizenberg, CRO and Head of Product Innovation at Kontakt.io
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