How Can Hospitals Use Real-Time Contact Tracing?
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for contact tracing in hospitals. Contact tracing has been largely tied to some manual processes, as healthcare and public health officials systematically identified individuals exposed to the coronavirus. Today, technology can use real-time location services (RTLS) to improve the contact identification process. The following examples show that RTLS can go a long way toward improving contact tracing to ultimately save lives.
ER case study of RTLS effectiveness
The American Journal of Infection Control published a study American Journal of Infection Control showing that traditional manual contact tracing processes, which are vital to the control of infectious disease, can be improved by using RTLS technology. Contact tracing, typically conducted by health departments, is a systematic effort to identify people exposed to an infectious disease. It’s a critical component to slow down or prevent the spread of illness among human populations. The study followed a 2016 pertussis outbreak by using electronic medical records (EMRs) and RTLS data from a local hospital. Researchers found that using RTLS doubled the effectiveness of their efforts to track this illness.
RTLS technology typically uses radio frequency to track the movements of a population. For example, RFID chips can be embedded in visitor badges in a healthcare facility to control the flow of visitors. Employees can also easily be followed, which could help with workflow analysis that potentially improves the work environment. Or RFID chips could be embedded in critical equipment that can then be easily located during a crisis. Standard contact tracing could require manual human interviews or, in the case of this study, chart reviews to determine exposure in a population. The study highlighted that RTLS technology was much more accurate in providing information on exposure to the illness.
Using RTLS during COVID-19
COVID-19 became the proving ground for a real-life large-scale crisis requiring contact tracing. We can look to a study of hospitals in Singapore to see how RTLS technology improved their response. The research was recently published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research and found that “RTLS-based contact tracing showed higher sensitivity and simplicity than EMR review. Integration of both methods provided the best performance for rapid contact tracing.”
Health Facilities Management magazine says RTLS “can help hospital facilities professionals track key assets and save time, money and lives.” But they point out the efficacy of these tools for other areas, such as contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Automating tracing of equipment and patients provides healthcare facilities with a clear ROI in the form of improved healthcare outcomes, faster bed turnover, improved staff workflows, and more. But since COVID-19, RTLS contact tracing use cases have surged in hospitals equipped with this technology.
How can contact tracing help your hospital?
The chief benefit of RTLS is that it gives hospital administrators a 360-degree view of hospital activity. RTLS-enabled sensors in badges and asset equipment tags emit a wireless signal to sensors throughout the hospital. These electronic pings can be traced from an online secure dashboard that displaces location data. The benefits are numerous during normal operations:
Pharmacies and supply managers can quickly scan inventories from a dashboard hub.
Visible real-time chain of custody is possible for specimens during collection, transport, and reporting.
Equipment can easily be located and theft can be reduced.
Key metrics such as the door-to-doc time in a busy ER can be tracked in real time.
Patient visibility is 100% as these customers move between facilities or across campuses.
During COVID-19, RTLS shows value for public health. Location data captured from RTLS platforms can make your hospital safer by:
Automating contact tracing to help healthcare professionals understand the exposure risk to patients and staff. If someone enters a facility who is later diagnosed with the virus, RTLS will map exactly which parts of your facility were exposed. The speed and accuracy of this information can slow the spread of the disease and potentially save lives.
RTLS can create a virtual waiting room. Real-time data can show room status, and staff can quickly escort a patient from their car — completely bypassing a waiting room that could be a likely location for exposure to the virus.
RTLS can communicate the status of a room being disinfected. One glance can show you the status of a patient or a room, which will help eliminate accidental cross-contamination.
RTLS is extremely helpful for bed turnover. This speeds up discharge processes and ultimately increases the number of beds available at a time when every bed is needed.
RTLS technology can help hospitals improve their response to the pandemic in many ways. However, the applications for this technology go beyond the pandemic, potentially saving hospitals time and money on wasted workflows, slow patient discharges, and lost equipment.
TRL helps healthcare facilities put RTLS to work during COVID-19. Our security and safety systems integrate smoothly in healthcare facilities seeking real-time visibility and real results. Talk with our healthcare team today to find out how RTLS can help your organization.