Elevating Nurse Call Systems with RTLS: 3 Keys to Improving Patient and Staff Experience in Hospitals
In modern hospital settings the experience of patients and staff are fundamental pillars of quality care delivery. Technology plays a role in the patient journey, directly contributing to overall experience and impacting eventual health outcomes. Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) have been adopted by health systems to enable a variety of use cases. When integrated with nurse call systems, RTLS can merge patient and staff location data with clinical workflow to transform moment-to-moment experiences for everyone. This paper explores three ways that the combination of real-time locating and nurse call systems can improve patient and staff experience.
1. Enhancing Patient Safety and Satisfaction.
Hospitals are focused on the complete patient experience – from providing effective care, to keeping patients safe, and ultimately achieving optimal outcomes. RTLS provides real-time visibility of staff and patient movements to nurse call systems which translates into workflow automation and more informed care teams. As nursing teams respond to patient calls or perform rounding activities, locating solutions automate call cancellation and rounding reminder resets upon room entry so clinicians can focus on their patients. Meanwhile, as patients move about the hospital, staff can be notified through the nurse call system helping to optimize patient flow and patient safety. Access to patient location changes allows healthcare providers to identify bottlenecks, streamline processes, and ensure timely access to care. And, in more emergent situations such as patient wandering or distress calls, high-precision RTLS gives response teams specific location information so they can intervene faster. The combination of nurse call and locating systems serve to enhance both patient safety and satisfaction for an improved experience during an episode of care.
2. Building Effective Clinical Workflow.
Clinical teams power healthcare delivery with defined workflows. However, even with clear process steps and the rising presence of technology inside of hospitals, many workflows still contain inefficiencies arising from manual tasks. Given that clinical efficiency is essential for delivering timely care, the addition of RTLS to the healthcare ecosystem, and the subsequent integration to nurse call systems, can introduce much needed automation that benefits care teams. Firstly, when the complete care team is wearing locating tags, they instantly have support for daily communication and collaboration. Staff location can be fed to nurse call systems where it is displayed on room stations, dome lights and dashboards giving bedside and support teams actionable insight for streamlined collaboration when they need to communicate with or find a teammate. Similarly, when equipment is tagged staff can easily collect the tools they need to respond more quickly to specific patient requests or alerts sent through the nurse call system. And, real-time location systems provide contextual data to nurse call systems that clinical leaders can use to realize operational improvements. Appending information about who, where and when staff interacted with each other and with patients deepens awareness surrounding call response, hourly rounds, and safety incidents. As a result, clinical leaders can make informed decisions about staffing, protocol and process change, and their teams can have informed discussions during shift handoff and safety huddles.
3. Ensuring Staff Safety.
An estimated 70% of all workplace assaults in the U.S. occur in the healthcare setting*. The safety of healthcare staff is critical in ensuring the delivery of quality care because when healthcare workers are confident that they are safe and protected, they can give their complete attention to patients and practice at the top of their license. Locating systems keep staff safe by enabling continuous knowledge of their precise location within the facility. During moments of duress, staff can call for help with a discreet, single press of a button on their tag. Meanwhile, security teams are notified immediately with specific and accurate location information that allows for rapid response and intervention. The connection of duress solutions to nurse call introduces an extended annunciation system and complete information sharing through the display of staff location alongside duress call information.
The systems and applications in hospitals can, and should, do more to support the staff that use them and the patients that depend upon them. One step that hospitals can take is to elevate the utility of the nurse call systems they already have in place with an integration to RTLS. As explored in this paper, pairing these two technologies together opens the path to making a meaningful impact on patient safety and satisfaction, clinical workflow and staff safety. As a result, hospitals will transform patient and staff experience, and by extension overall outcomes.
*Front Public Health. 2020