Real-time location systems in nursing homes: state of the art and future applications

Abstract

Purpose-In the domain of healthcare, both process efficiency and the quality of care can be improved through the use of dedicated pervasive technologies. Among these applications are so-called real-time location systems (RTLS). Such systems are designed to determine and monitor the location of assets and people in real time through the use of wireless sensor networks. Numerous commercially available RTLS are used in hospital settings. The nursing home is a relatively unexplored context for the application of RTLS and offers opportunities and challenges for future applications. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach-This paper sets out to provide an overview of general applications and technologies of RTLS. Thereafter, it describes the specific healthcare applications of RTLS, including asset tracking, patient tracking and personnel tracking. These overviews are followed by a forecast of the implementation of RTLS in nursing homes in terms of opportunities and challenges. Findings-By comparing the nursing home to the hospital, the RTLS applications for the nursing home context that are most promising are asset tracking of expensive goods owned by the nursing home in order to facilitate workflow and maximise financial resources, and asset tracking of personal belongings that may get lost due to dementia. Originality/value-This paper is the first to provide an overview of potential application of RTLS technologies for nursing homes. The paper described a number of potential problem areas that can be addressed by RTLS.

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“…Information on the whereabouts of both assets and people can have many benefits for organizations [7]. Technologies that can track location indoors are commonly referred to as real-time location systems (RTLS) [8]. Healthcare is one of the major domains in which RTLS are applied.…”

“…Healthcare is one of the major domains in which RTLS are applied. Other domains are retail, logistics and the automotive industry [8, 9]. A RTLS commonly exists of two hardware parts: tags on the one hand and location sensors on the other.…”

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