SigaME

SigaME RTLS: locates and tracks

RTLS gives the hospital real-time visibility: where equipment, materials and people are, whether each unit has enough, and how they are used.

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Illustration: floor plan with equipment located in real time

What is RTLS?

RTLS (Real Time Location System) is the technology that finds where people, equipment and materials are inside the hospital and shows it right away, on a map.

In SigaME, every item gets a tag or a device. The building infrastructure picks up the signal, the platform works out the position, and the answer comes in words and on the map: "in Room 12", "near Room 12", "seen 40 min ago".

Instead of searching, the hospital simply looks it up.

Illustration: a tag sends a signal, a fixed point picks it up, the platform calculates and the map shows the position

How it works, in four steps

  1. Tags and devices

    Equipment and materials get a tag (RFID, BLE or eTag). Professionals carry the eCom.

  2. Infrastructure

    Wi-Fi anchors, BLE gateways, RFID readers and portals pick up the signals throughout the building.

  3. SigaME platform

    Each technology keeps its own location engine, and the result converges into one common format: place, floor and time.

  4. Map, alerts and actions

    The position shows on the live map and in the 3D digital twin, feeds rules and alerts, and triggers tasks in Flow.

Four technologies, one platform

All of them can coexist in the same hospital. The hospital chooses according to the cost and accuracy it wants.

  • Wi-Fi

    Uses the hospital's own network. A signal map per floor and a probabilistic engine with tracking over time. It is the basis for locating professionals carrying an eCom.

  • BLE

    Bluetooth LE beacons and gateways. Shows the point on the map, the room, the floor or the proximity, and processes hundreds of beacons in parallel. Good for carts and mobile equipment.

  • RAIN RFID

    Passive tags read by readers and antennas at known places. Portals with direction log entry and exit. Ideal for surgical boxes, trays and checkpoints.

  • GNSS

    Satellite location in outdoor areas, with the eCom+.

Who it is for and when to use it

To know where something is, where it has been and whether each unit has enough: less search time, fewer losses and better use of assets.

Three-dimensional map of a hospital floor with location points over the rooms

What the hospital gets

  • Locate

    Search by name, type, asset tag or label, with answers in words: "in Room 12", "near Room 12", "seen 40 min ago". Free equipment shows up first.

  • Live map, history and trail

    Where the item is now, where it has been and how long it stayed in each place.

  • Equipment status

    Free, in use, soiled or under maintenance, according to the type of place where it is.

  • Minimum stock (PAR)

    An alert when a unit falls below its minimum number of free equipment, which triggers a restocking task.

  • Clinical engineering

    Equipment not seen for more than 7 days, overdue preventive maintenance, and cleaning and calibration history per item.

  • Usage and idle time

    A report in hours and percentage, with a ranking of the least used to support purchasing and reallocation.

  • Rules and alerts

    Entered, left, disappeared or stayed too long in a place.

  • CCTV integration

    An alert can tag the cameras of the location in Digifort or Milestone, and the trail shows which cameras to check.

3D digital twin of the building

Floors, rooms by type of use, items in real time and a trail in three dimensions, right in the browser.

Selected room in the digital twin with the list of items inside it
Click a room and the digital twin lists the items that are in it right now.
Trail of a piece of equipment across floors in the digital twin
The trail shows where a piece of equipment has been across floors.

In the operating-room materials flow

The operating room depends on boxes, kits, carts, trays and instruments arriving at the right place at the right time.

  • Surgical boxes

    Passive RFID tag read at portals and checkpoints, to know whether the box has reached the operating room.

  • Carts and mobile equipment

    BLE beacon, Wi-Fi tag or eTag, with location by room or zone and less search time.

  • Entry and exit portals

    RAIN RFID readers with direction (in or out) and automatic passage logging.

  • Items in a soiled room

    A rule by type of place: sanitizing is triggered automatically by Flow.

Works well with

  • SigaME Flow

    RTLS shows where things are. Flow makes things happen: a soiled room triggers sanitizing and a unit below its minimum triggers restocking.

  • SigaME Journey

    Journey turns patient location into steps, times and rooms, and requires RTLS.

  • SigaME Sense

    Fixed infrastructure devices also measure the temperature and humidity of each place.

Want to know where every piece of equipment is?

Let us work out together which assets and units bring the greatest return with RTLS.

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