SBIR-STTR Award

Sentinel Wireless LLC has created an automatic, continuous, real-time indoor location system (ILS) specifically for the healthcare environment. The ILS will be installed on standard networks and is compatible with existing databases, making its deployment simple, inexpensive, and user-friendly. The investigators believe that the system will improve the safety and efficiency of healthcare by enabling the monitoring and analysis of patients, staff and clinical process flows; providing data on equipment utilization; and reducing the time the clinical staff spends searching for equipment. This Fast Track application proposes installation of a previously prototyped Sentinel ILS in a limited area of the Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration with CIMIT (Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology) and the Operating Room Future (ORF) program. The ORF is a single operating suite staffed by team of individuals dedicated to evaluating new technologies and successfully incorporating innovation into their work processes. Phase I will track patients and mobile surgical equipment through registration, surgery and recovery and will have an objective of demonstrating that the ILS can quickly locate medical devices or people in the clinical setting. Researchers will determine feasibility and validate accuracy of the ILS by: - Building, deploying and testing second-generation prototype equipment - Evaluating the ILS reliability, maintainability and ability to track items - Validate and verify the ILS information. Phase II will consist of system implementation, end-user education, acceptability and utility evaluation, cost-effectiveness analysis and ultimately, re-engineering the commercial version of the product. The ILS system stores location data, creating a vast and accurate, and therefore exceedingly powerful, quantitative platform upon which to begin analyzing current process flows and resource allocation. Armed with this solid database, the research community can then tackle the compelling challenges of system inefficiencies and patient care improvements. This research will then allow decision-makers to make the correct operational changes and technology purchases needed to significantly impact cost and patient care. Investigators believe this work will have immediate and dramatic utility in the clinical environment and provide the needed documentation to implement the ILS through out the hospital.

Thesaurus Terms:
biomedical equipment development, data collection, health care facility, patient monitoring device computer program /software, health care service, hospital, time resolved data bioengineering /biomedical engineering, clinical research, human subject

Radianse Inc. (formerly Sentinel Wireless, LLC) has created an automatic, continuous, real-time indoor positioning system (IPS) specifically for the healthcare environment. The IPS is installed on standard networks and is compatible with existing databases, making its deployment simple, inexpensive, and user-friendly. The investigators believe the system will improve the safety and efficiency of healthcare by enabling the monitoring and analysis of patients, staff and clinical process flows. In addition, the system will provide data on equipment utilization, and will reduce the time the clinical staff spend searching for equipment. In Phase I of this SBIR, the researchers determined that the prototype IPS accurately and reliably tracked staff and patients in both space and time. Specifically, the data indicates that the location of tagged staff and patients can be determined to at least the room level and within approximately 30 seconds as compared to the "gold standard" of trained observers recording locations and times. This Phase II SBIR application proposes to demonstrate the IPS installed at MGH results in increased efficiencies in a clinical and research setting as measured by reduced patient waiting times and decreased surgical flow-times. Specifically, based on the successful Phase I results and utilization of the IPS's powerful quantitative platform, Phase II will analyze current process flows in the MGH perisurgical setting. The aims of Phase II are to: - Re-engineer and deploy hardware and software based on clinical feedback for COMMERCIALIZATION. - Quantify the Clinical UTILITY of IPS-on reducing occurrence of delays during surgical care; reducing time spent looking for patients and equipment; on reducing wait time and patient flow time; and on improvement in staff satisfaction. - Quantify the COST-EFFECTIVENESS and ROI in the OR of the Future using the IPS compared with standard OR without IPS. Armed with this solid database, the research community can then tackle the compelling challenges of system inefficiencies and patient care improvements. This research will then allow decision-makers to effect the necessary operational changes and technology purchases to significantly impact cost and patient care. Investigators believe this work will have immediate and dramatic utility in the clinical environment and provide the needed documentation to implement the IPS throughout the hospital.

Thesaurus Terms:
computer program /software, computer system design /evaluation, data collection, health care facility, patient monitoring device, time resolved data cost effectiveness, health care facility information system, health care service, hospital bioengineering /biomedical engineering, clinical research, human data