Smart Hospital with RTLS: Locating Devices, Ensuring Smooth Operations
RTLS in the hospital makes medical equipment and clinical workflows findable in real time: infusion pumps, beds, wheelchairs and mobile devices, located at any moment. As the foundation of the smart hospital, real-time location provides the data basis for smooth processes, better equipment utilization and more time for care instead of searching.
Today's challenges
Staff Shortages
Understaffed hospitals need to create even more efficient processes to better balance the workload of medical and nursing staff.
Search time
The search for equipment is time-consuming and frustrating for your staff. These non-value-added tasks reduce the time available for patient care and other important responsibilities.
Information Availability
Information is often passed along via phone or in brief hallway conversations. However, this information is quickly forgotten and outdated. This leads to delays and errors in daily operations.
Loss & Theft
Every year, hospitals lose equipment worth millions of euros. Preventing theft and loss of such equipment can quickly lead to improved results.
Patient Monitoring
To ensure the safety of patients, such as those with dementia, in an unfamiliar environment, their location must be constantly monitored to prevent them from entering potentially dangerous situations.
RTLS in the Hospital:
Real-Time Location for Clinical Operations
Asset Tracking
With Cavea’s intuitive software, instantly locate all essential medical equipment. You can see the current location of each device in real time, allowing nursing and medical staff to focus on patient care—not on searching for equipment.
The wireless, battery-powered system is designed for years of use and can be set up quickly and easily—without extensive wiring or the need for new outlets.
Key features:
- Live Location Overview for Essential Medical Equipment and Other Assets
- User-Friendly Interface for Operation by Medical Staff
- Seamless Integration into Your Hospital Information System (HIS) for Optimized Inventory Management
Device Transport
Key features:
- Digital Tickets with All Relevant Task Details
- Live Notifications to Inform and Keep Teams Updated
- Universal Compatibility for Any Equipment to Be Transported
Protection against loss and theft
Easily secure your valuable equipment. With our RTLS solution, you receive immediate alerts if a device leaves its designated area. This helps protect your investments and prevent losses.
Key features:
- Live Alerts for Immediate Response When Devices Leave the Assigned Area
- Simple and quick to install RTLS solution
- Live map overview with all your devices
Patient Monitoring
Key features:
- Live Alerts for Proactive Intervention
- Small Devices for Patient Comfort
- Easy Definition of Zones That Patients Should Not Enter
Your Advantages
Our solutions deliver benefits that ensure a high ROI.
How it works
Which RTLS Technology Is Right for Your Hospital?
The choice depends on precision, latency and battery life, and these three are also the main TCO levers.
- UWB: highest precision, for example to assign devices to a specific room; the fixed receivers are called satellites.
- Cavea Mesh: battery-powered with up to 10 years of battery life and low infrastructure effort, ideal for large hospital campuses and fast scaling.
In the signal flow, tags send to the anchors as direct receivers; gateways forward the position data. Cavea is omlox-compliant, and precise UWB positioning corresponds to the omlox core zone. See the technology page for the full comparison.
See the technology page for the full comparison:
What other companies say
“Cavea displays precise movement and position data of objects on our employee-focused application. This enables our customers to realize significant productivity gains and process improvements.”
Jan Lachenmayer
“By combining UWB and Cavea Mesh technology, we are working together to create a versatile solution that combines the highest precision with scalable connectivity. This enables us to provide a real-time overview of assets and maximize ROI for our customers.”
Erik Mademann
“The seamless interaction within our IoT platform of ESLs and Cavea’s tracking solution enables paperless production and sustainable process automation. Together, we create complete transparency and more efficient processes for our customers.”
Artur Brommer
Frequently asked questions about RTLS in the hospital
What does RTLS bring to a hospital?
RTLS continuously tracks medical devices and equipment in real time. This cuts search times for nursing and biomedical staff, improves the utilization of expensive rental and pool devices and protects against loss and theft. That leaves more time for patient care instead of searching.
Which devices can be located?
Typically mobile medical devices such as infusion pumps, ventilators, beds, wheelchairs and diagnostic devices. The tags are small and long-lasting, so even large device pools can be equipped economically.
What accuracy is possible?
It depends on the technology. UWB reaches accuracies below 10 centimeters. For many clinical applications, room or area-level location with lower infrastructure effort is sufficient.
Which RTLS technology is right for a hospital?
The choice depends on precision, latency and battery life, the three main TCO levers. UWB offers the highest precision; the fixed receivers are called satellites. Cavea Mesh is battery-powered with up to 10 years of battery life and low infrastructure effort, ideal for large hospital campuses.
What about data protection and personal data?
The focus is on locating devices and equipment, not people. Where personal safety is relevant, such as wander protection or alerting in hazardous situations, this is implemented as a narrowly scoped safety use case and in line with GDPR, in coordination with the responsible bodies.
Is Cavea's RTLS solution omlox-compliant?
Yes. Cavea hardware is omlox-compliant. The precise UWB positioning corresponds to the omlox core zone, and further technologies can be connected as complementary zones. This keeps the solution interoperable and easy to integrate into existing hospital information systems.
