I have two customer discussions going on at the moment – both require real time asset tracking, one is looking at a WiFi solution (plus software and appropriate tags) and the other is looking at a tag-centric solution with it’s own radio network running alongside their WiFi (concerned about traffic). Aside from the cost differences – what does the group think about the perceived “competition” between these two approaches. No plugs for your own company’s solutions please ! – objectivity appreciated.

The thread is very lively, with folks from different camps (and manufacturers) defending their point of view. As respectful as the tone is here, there is a bit high tech mud slinging going on here that is telling regarding the state of the industry. All too often when talking to customers, the conversation starts with infrastructure. And the predominant marketing messaging out there is that the infrastructure is the solution. This can be pretty dangerous thinking.

In fairness to Shoalib, his query was specific to RTLS from an infrastructure perspective, so it’s fair that the thread is about infrastructure. As we work with customers we often find that technology buyers all too often want to boil it down to A or B. I would suggest that by not focusing on broader applications and “solutions,” the industry has seriously confused and kept away customers through slugfests like this. Overall adoption rate is nowhere any of us expected it to be at this point. Why is that? As some of the folks in thread suggest, there has been lots of over promising going on, and the technology needed to improve. But in spite of the improvements, the reality is that infrastructure alone will not deliver the results that customers are looking for when purchasing an visibility solution. One of the responders, Trish Messiter, smartly tries to reel all this in by suggesting:

The real question here is what is best for requirements? The answer, unfortunately, is “it depends.”

I’m with Trish on this one. While everyone is piling on regarding whether WiFi is a good solution or not, we don’t really get to hear what Shoalib’s customer is trying to accomplish, nor do we have a good enough understanding of the environment. In many cases, WiFi will make sense, or the infrastructure may be a hybrid one, with a location engine listening to different types of sensors used for different purposes.

So what are some good examples of passive RFID in healthcare and what should you look out for? First, think of passive RFID as EZ-Pass in a hospital. The technology is very good for capturing the incidents of a tag that passes by it and when. It does not do a good job of knowing your location on the highway or bridge after you pass the toll. This is where active works well.

Here are some good examples of passive RFID in a hospital :

• Patient elopement (walk-outs) in the ED.
• Equipment containment within a floor or a unit
• Securing equipment at entrances and exits.
• Tracking cardiac catheters in and out of inventory.

So, what should you be aware of prior to exploring a passive RFID solutions?

• The big issue is that if you begin to tag equipment, it’s likely that you will not be applying an active tag in the future. It’s certainly possible, but highly unlikely for the next few years.
• Make sure that the technology you choose can detect motion and directionality. Up until recently, passive RFID systems could only tell if there was a tag within its reading zone. Given the use case, you’ll want to know if someone is going out, or going in and also whether the tag is moving or just happen to be near the reader.
• Choose tags wisely. It’s a bit of an art to determine the right tag for different applications. Factors such as metal content, water content, distance and orientation to antenna all play in determining the right tag solution.
• Know what you are going to do with the data collected. Example: Do you need an audible alarm each time an IV pump walks off the ICU? Or maybe to record the event? Do you need security to get an immediate message that a wheelchair leaves the building? Or maybe the control center should get a pop-up on their screen.

There’s no question that active RFID is much more evolved in healthcare applications. There are many active RFID vendor solutions that are well documented. Awareness and education of another possible solution could save you time and money.

So indeed it is an unusual thing to get competitors together respectfully, and that’s what Intelligent InSites did at their first annual partner summit last week in Fargo, ND. And while Aeroscout was conspicuously absent from the proceedings, the four other key players in the sensory network/RFID/RTLS infrastructure space (I realize that’s a mouthful): Centrak, Ekahau, Sonitor, & Awarepoint were there in full force. No insults, put downs, or barbs. It was refreshingly civil.

A More Open Sandbox

As a relative newcomer to the RTLS space, InSites is taking a decidedly open approach to location enablement (or “Enterprise Visibility” as they like to refer to it). With so many potential applications in the healthcare enterprise that can benefit from location intelligence, InSites’ true differentiation is the platform, and not just a collection of their own applications. This is a more open sandbox than you would typically see in healthcare (traditionally a rats nest from an interoperability perspecttve) and this bodes well for customers who realize that technology tribalism is counterproductive. Their vision is one of location smarts, inbound and outbound, framed by business intelligence: not only good data, but the tools to make sense of that data. And indeed that’s why it made sense for all the infrastructure players to be there together.

Hmm… Beta, VHS, Blue Ray

The summit provided a very well-rounded look at a relatively new industry. Maybe it’s the sports fandom that’s in us, but we looked forward to having a chance to see the infrastructure players all together at the same time. To that end, Vi Shaffer, Gartner’s Research Vice President and Global Industry Services Director for Healthcare, led a lively roundtable with Ekahau’s Tuomo Rutanen, Centrak’s Mark Nowakowski, Awarepoint’s Matt Perkins, and Sonitor’s Terry Aasen. This was followed up on Day 2 by each of the player sharing the unique aspects of their product.

What was very striking to us as we listened to the pitches was how widely different each of these companies’ approaches to providing precise location information is. Nothing apples to apples about it. It’s rare to see key infrastructure players approaches so radically different in approach (this is more than Beta vs. VHS). One does wonder how this shakes out as the industry matures.

And while as a business TPC Healthcare has its own preferences, as a technologist, I was jazzed about what they are all doing for different reasons:

• Ekahau for continuing to refine what’s doable with Wi-Fi
• Centrak for their ability to provide great precision using a very practical and simple architecture
• Awarepoint’z ZigBee based solution for thinking big regarding reaching beyond just the healthcare institution and into the home (and small with their convenient wall socket plug-in readers)
• Sonitor for the promise of 1 meter accuracy, 2D or 3D (kudos to Terry for being brave enough to demonstrate USID in front of a potentially rough crowd)

An interesting to note is that  we are beginning to see the some degree of the competitive vendors applying aspects of each other’s technologies in the effort of meeting the market needs (e.g. Ekahau’s introduction of IR-based room level beacon). Perhaps this is an indication of some future consolidation/collaboration on the horizon.

RTLS Infrastructure Now Poised to Really Deliver Anticipated Benefits

Keynoter Vi Shaffer’s lunchtime presentation was careful to give context to the state of RTLS in healthcare. The good news is that Gartner’s view of RTLS is very bullish, and places it clearly in their hype cycle chart on the upswing from the trough of disillusionment (where technologies fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable) and moving towards the “plateau of productivity” (a technology’s benefits become widely demonstrated and accepted).

The timing of InSites summit was not accidental, as much is finally coming together that is making RTLS actionable (including platforms like Intelligent InSites that recognize the diversity of potential location consumers). Real, measurable, and game changing productivity is practical in ways that were never before possible. While the true results will no doubt be the sum of the parts, the backbone of the productivity end game will be the practical, affordable, and accurate location infrastructure that Ekahau, Centrak, Awarepoint, and Sonitor are driving towards.

Some takeaways from the event… it seems that there are enough forces to motivate the market away from WiFi solutions. Second, creative funding models are really what are helping the adoption of enterprise solutions along with managed services. The shift away from capitalized purchases for RTLS and RFID systems may be what moves deployments of these solutions out of the early adopter realm.

The other take away is that passive RFID definitely has a place in healthcare. We heard some compelling case studies regarding high impact, yet lower tech applications of more traditional (if there is such a thing) passive RFID. So even thought there are massive initiatives for enterprise RFID based on active technologies, customers are getting great return from less pervasive and more specific passive technologies. UMass Memorial has such an initiative in the Cath and EP labs. Also, Ray Lowe, the IS Director of Providence Health (a major west coast hospital group) talked about how he will be using Reva Systems (make applications to manage and integrate RFID readers) and ThingMagic (makes readers) as part of workflow in a new facility that will have a WiFi-based RTLS system.

The real story here is that no one auto-ID or location-based solution is going to fit all needs within the enterprise. And that’s not a bad thing. Continued innovation and product maturity, along with more open systems are making this all doable. For hospitals, there are opportunities small and large to take advantage of RFID and RTLS to immediately impact productivity and the bottom line.

I’m not always a great fan of white papers as I often find them manipulative point of view wise, but I think this piece (except for a couple of paragraphs at the end) gives a very impartial read on the whys and hows of RTLS/RFID in healthcare. While it details eloquently the short-comings of WiFi and zonal “good enough” approaches, it more importantly couches them properly against the larger more practical business cases for RTLS in healthcare. David’s piece is less a condemnation of WiFi, and more of a call to making this about business not technology.

Hoglund developed this whitepaper for AwarePoint (whose RTLS technology uses ZigBee), but the conclusions could have just as easily pointed to Sonitor (Ultrasound), or Centrak (IR/RF).

The good news is that customers have some solid choices in powering the critical applications that are so desperately needed to help improve healthcare business performance.

TPC Healthcare today announced that it has signed an agreement with CenTrak Inc., to provide integrated tracking and workflow automation solutions to healthcare facilities. TPC Healthcare will utilize CenTrak’�s patented InTouchCare, a hybrid technology that combines a new generation of Infrared and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to track people and equipment to a room and individual bay. CenTrak developed InTouchCare™ technology to provide a “location-certainty” by overcoming the inaccuracies of “location-estimation” hindered by issues of RF penetration of walls, ceilings and floors.

Room and sub-room level Accuracy with Certainty
CenTrak patient and equipment tags use Gen2IR™ infrared light signals which cannot penetrate walls to accurately locate people and movable medical equipment to a specific room. The active-RFID component is used to communicate the location information back to the network for maximum tag capacity and a fast response time. In this way, CenTrak provides room and sub-room level accuracy with certainty, not based on an estimate. Installation of a CenTrak InTouchCare network is simplified by using battery-powered components which eliminate wiring and offer plug-and-play installation functionality. With RF and Infrared operating simultaneously, the sensors can operate continuously for up to five years on a set of batteries.

CenTrak developed InTouchCare™ technology to provide a “location-certainty” by overcoming the inaccuracies of “location-estimation” hindered by issues of RF penetration of walls, ceilings and floors. CenTrak patient and equipment tags use Gen2IR™ infrared light signals which cannot penetrate walls to accurately locate people and movable medical equipment to a specific room. The active-RFID component is used to communicate the location information back to the network for maximum tag capacity and a fast response time. In this way, CenTrak provides room and sub-room level accuracy with certainty, not based on an estimate.

High-level precision, Excellent battery life and Low cost of Installation
TPC Healthcare will integrate the Centrak infrastructure with software applications that meet the specific needs of the customer. “Centrak has hit the value intersection in RTLS by providing an infrastructure the combines high-level precision, excellent battery life and low cost of installation. Used in combination with the right application software, TPC Healthcare can offer healthcare customers a software platform that can start as a simple tracking solution and grow into a sophisticated location-aware workflow automation solution,” states Kenny Schiff, TPC Healthcare Managing Director.

About CenTrak
CenTrak is a leading provider of precise, adaptable, and cost-effective tracking solutions for healthcare facilities. The patented InTouchCare™ Real Time Location System (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. As the only predominantly battery-powered RTLS network, CenTrak has attained an ease and cost effective level of installation previously unattainable. InTouchCare is currently operating in millions of square feet at several world-class healthcare sites in the United States. For more information about CenTrak, please visit www.centrak.com.

About TPC Healthcare
Headquartered in Stratford, Connecticut, TPC Healthcare provides point-of-care communication technologies, such as wireless voice, alarm notification, and workflow automation, to hospitals and healthcare organizations in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions. TPC Healthcare’s unique blend of technology expertise, exceptional service, and years of experience successfully delivering point-of-care solutions help hospitals and healthcare organizations improve clinical workflow, increase patient safety, and provide better utilization of patient care equipment. For more information about TPC Healthcare and/or its services, call 888.427.2215 or visit www.tpchealthcare.com.