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Patient Care Technology Systems implementation integrates hybrid RTLS from CenTrak and facility management services from ARAMARK.

Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSLR), announced that Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC) has selected the company's Amelior Tracker system to automatically track and manage hospital assets throughout their 4.1 million square foot campus. This represents the largest known real-time location system (RTLS) implementation in a healthcare facility worldwide. Patient Care Technology Systems will integrate a hybrid RTLS infrastructure from CenTrak. WFUBMC facility services provider, ARAMARK Healthcare, will manage and support the installation ongoing.

WFUBMC, one of the nation’s preeminent academic medical centers, is an integrated health care system that operates 1,056 acute care, rehabilitation, long-term, and psychiatric care beds, outpatient services, and community health and information centers. The Medical Center has 22 subsidiary or affiliate hospitals and operates more than 100 outreach activities throughout the Winston-Salem region. In 2008, WFUBMC was recognized as one of the nation’s “Most Wired” hospitals.

The first segment of the enterprise-wide asset management installation will include monitoring the temperature of patient medications and tracking IV pumps at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, WFUBMC’s primary clinical facility. Additionally, all stretchers and wheel chairs will be tagged supporting the WFUBMC’s patient transport process Six-Sigma team. Future stages under consideration include real-time patient flow management for emergency, surgery and radiology departments.

The Amelior Tracker solution is part of the Amelior Enterprise Visibility Suite™ which comprises department to facility-wide software solutions and services designed to more efficiently and safely orchestrate patient care through the real-time visualization of patient flow. Hospitals can scale their implementations by the entities they wish to track (movable medical equipment, patients, staff), purpose (asset management, patient flow, infection control) and by the scope of hospital workflow (acute care, inpatient floors, outpatient services, enterprise-wide).

The web-based Amelior tracking software visualizes workflow by automatically identifying the location of people and equipment and the care progression of patients. Location information is generated by integrating with a facility’s choice of RTLS. The Patient Care Technology Systems software is compatible across all locating technologies and the company assists clients in selecting the optimal RTLS for their workflow needs. Workflow algorithms within the software interpret the meaning of location, movement and interactions between patients, staff and equipment to alert caregivers to patient care milestones as they occur. Additional interfaces to hospital and department information systems and communication devices create a centralized workflow communication and management portal that eliminates the need for manual updates and delays caused by a lack of information.

At WFUBMC, Patient Care Technology Systems will implement a hybrid RTLS network from business partner CenTrak, with whom Patient Care Technology Systems announced a strategic marketing agreement earlier this year. CenTrak’s InTouchCare™ differs from legacy technologies in its combined use of a patented new generation of infrared (Gen2IR) and RFID. CenTrak’s battery powered monitors (over five years of battery life) transmit a unique room number using Gen2IR which is received by any tag in that room. The tag communicates the room number and its own unique ID via RF to the InTouchCare Location Server using a hospital’s existing wired or Wi-Fi network, where it can be accessed in real-time by hospital personnel. Like light, Gen2IR will not pass through walls and it does not suffer from traditional infrared line-of-sight limitations.

“After a comprehensive, multi-year RTLS marketplace review, we chose Patient Care Technology Systems because of their proven experience in implementing scalable, workflow-intelligent solutions that can meet our demanding current and future needs,” said Tony Marra CHFM, director of facility services at WFUBMC. “Their ability to integrate the right locating technology with software that can be tailored to manage diverse workflows at the significant scale that we plan to automate, made Patient Care Technology Systems with CenTrak the only choice for our health system.”

“We are extremely pleased to welcome Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center as the newest member of our growing family of health care facilities,” said Tony Marsico, president and CEO of Patient Care Technology Systems. “Real-time location enabled workflow automation offers tremendous cost savings and revenue potential to hospitals seeking to improve resource utilization and improve the efficiency of key service lines. WFUBMC’s workflow automation vision is one of the most significant examples to date of the healthcare marketplace’s recognition of the potential scope that is possible.”

About Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (www.wfubmc.edu) is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Brenner Children’s Hospital, Wake Forest University Physicians, and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine and Piedmont Triad Research Park.

About ARAMARK Healthcare

ARAMARK Healthcare is a leader in providing best-in-class non-clinical services that are essential to healthcare delivery. Understanding that clinical excellence and the environment are interdependent, ARAMARK Healthcare directly impacts the entire healthcare continuum – patient, employee, nurse and physician satisfaction, operational efficiency and service excellence.

About CenTrak

CenTrak is a leading provider of precise, adaptable, and cost-effective tracking infrastructure for healthcare facilities. The patented InTouchCare™ RTLS infrastructure uniquely combines Gen2IR and active RFID technologies to deliver certainty-based or error free data, a requirement for workflow and other important applications.

About Patient Care Technology Systems

Patient Care Technology Systems, a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSLR), helps health care providers to improve patient flow, increase capacity and improve patient and staff safety by visualizing the real-time location and status of patients and equipment throughout their facility. Proven return on investment in high turnover, high acuity departments such as the emergency department and perioperative suite where Patient Care Technology Systems solutions have supported over 5 million patient visits with automatic tracking and emergency department documentation solutions. The Amelior Enterprise Visibility Suite is compatible with all leading locating technologies including active-RFID, infrared, ultrasound, ultra-wideband, Wi-Fi and ZigBee. Patient Care Technology Systems customers have been recognized nationally for improvements in efficiency and clinical excellence. For more information, visit www.pcts.com.

Source: Patient Care Technology Systems