Real-time Location Systems (RTLS) in Healthcare: Wi-Not Wi-Fi?
September 3rd, 2009
AUTHOR(S): David H. Hoglund
ABSTRACT: CIO’s must ask some very important questions to really appraise the cost and value of Wi-Fi based RTLS: 1. Are you really using existing infrastructure? The “just add water” story Wi-Fi marketers publicize loses steam in real-world applications. 2. What is the cost (in time and expertise) for on-going maintenance of Wi-Fi RTLS? Once you’ve optimized your Wi-Fi infrastructure for RTLS, you will need extensive location planning of highly trained individuals to keep it calibrated. 3. How will Wi-Fi RTLS traffic affect your network? Hospital administrators who select Wi-Fi based RTLS will be quickly disenchanted to find that with the increased “noise” Wi-Fi RTLS tags generate, Wi-Fi communications performance will degrade. This white paper will discuss some of the past and current paradigm changes that are present within the healthcare vertical market regarding RTLS. It will additionally provide an overview of Wi-Fi RTLS solutions and why it seems these solutions have not moved out from a “science project” or a departmental system to one that is enterprise-wide and providing quantifiable business process improvement.
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Categories: Whitepapers