The Advisory Board Company Reports on Process Improvement through Hospital Automation

The Advisory Board Company recently published the first in a series of reports on the evolution of automated patient flow in hospitals.

The report, “Bringing It All Together: How Hospitals Can Improve Care Processes with Patient Flow Systems,” written by Senior Research Analyst Anthony Perry, addresses the increasing interest in patient flow automation among European healthcare providers.

The report looks at three levels of hospital automation:

1. Operational Management – defined as a holistic view of hospital activity as it relates to capacity planning
2. Real-Time Care Coordination – involves location tracking of patients, assets, and staff
3. Capacity Planning – focuses on planning for both staff resources and service lines

The study outlines the potential benefits of each level of automation, offers a representative list of vendors for each category, and discusses the considerations involved when healthcare providers make a purchase. The article also provides a cursory overview of the development of automated patient throughput and the vendors’ transitions into other related areas.

This overview charts the evolution from the electronic whiteboard, invented by TeleTracking, to comprehensive systems that integrate real-time locating systems with capacity management software in order to drive efficiency by delivering real-time management of daily hospital functions (another TeleTracking milestone).

The increased interest of European markets in hospital automation is further evidence that inefficiency is a universal problem in healthcare that must be addressed in order to enable hospitals to continue delivering quality care.

While the word “automation” invariably conjures up images of robots and assembly lines, hospital automation is not designed to displace workers, but to give them more time for caregiving by making their jobs easier and their performance more efficient.

Hospital automation is a concept whose time clearly is here, and TeleTracking is proud to be driving it.

Members of The Advisory Board Company can download a copy of the report by clicking here.