Butler Memorial Hospital, the centerpiece of Butler Health System, improves operational workflow and patient care with an integrated solution from Intelligent InSites, Ekahau, and Vocera
Butler, PA – January 10, 2011 – Butler Health System (BHS) announced today that patients in their Butler Memorial Hospital are benefitting from faster and more personalized care as a result of implementing Real-Time Locating and Sensing (RTLS) technologies. BHS has partnered with Intelligent InSites to implement the InSites Enterprise Visibility Platform™ (InSites Platform), the Ekahau real-time location system (RTLS), and the Vocera communication system, as the core of its patient flow and communication solution.
The innovative InSites Platform collects location data of both patients and equipment, as they move throughout the hospital, utilizing Wi-Fi-based location tags powered by Ekahau, which leverage the HP ProCurve wireless network. The data is then processed through a sophisticated rules engine, which ultimately drives the notifications and alerts out to other applications and systems. The InSites Platform uses the real-time location information from Ekahau to automatically track and trigger patient care milestone updates allowing staff to be more efficient and the hospital to streamline their operations. In addition, the system allows Butler Memorial Hospital to realize significant hard dollar savings by providing reports on the optimal equipment levels which are then used in their purchasing and rental processes.
“The InSites Platform and applications coupled with Ekahau RTLS product and the Vocera communication system provides our staff, patients, and their families with seamless communication, improved patient flow, and reduction in non-value added time,” said Chuck Oleson, VP and Chief Information Officer at Butler Health System. “It definitely enables us to increase patient satisfaction by ensuring better communication, while also helping us use our resources more effectively.”
“We are very pleased with the results of implementing the InSites solution. The success of the project can be greatly attributed to the excellent planning process and benchmarking methodologies Intelligent InSites has to offer. As a result, we were able to gain total visibility into our operations,” emphasized Peter Schogel, Director of the Program Management Office at Butler Health System.
According to Antti Korhonen, President & CEO of Ekahau, “Butler Health System is a great example of how Wi-Fi RTLS can be leveraged to track patients and assets, manage critical workflow, and to monitor temperature sensitive environments over a single Wi-Fi network. This approach helps Butler Health System get a faster and greater return on investment from their wireless infrastructure.”
Butler Health System has also leveraged the InSites Platform integration capabilities to tie together several existing hospital’s information systems, including Vocera communication system, document management solution from Alpha Systems, MEDITECH electronic health record system, Picis OR scheduling system, Intego nurse call, and Microsoft BizTalk driving even more value from their current applications. Now nurse calls, physician orders, and alert messages can be routed directly to the appropriate staff.
“The integration of the Vocera system with the InSites solution provides Butler’s clinical staff an effective way to deliver time-sensitive information, such as new physician orders directly to the appropriate care provider,” commented Jeff Leichman, Eastern Regional Vice President of Vocera.
Patients’ families and friends also benefit from the deployment of the InSites enabled solution. They now are able to receive automated and customized message updates regarding progress of their loved ones, regardless if they are waiting in a family room or a hospital’s cafeteria. This alone has greatly reduced the number of phone calls to and from the OR for status updates.
Through the implementation of the InSites solution, BHS staff can also automatically monitor and log compliance of temperature monitored devices, such as refrigerators or warming blankets. This allows BHS to convert sixty hours of non-value added time to value added time each day, which translates into more time nurses can spend directly with patients instead of conducting manual and time consuming temperature checks.
With the system’s reporting capabilities, Butler Health System can automatically track the time the surgery patients spend during each phase of their operation. This information can be used to improve workflow processes, better manage staffing and equipment resources, as well as report performance against throughput metrics.
“Butler Health System has had a clear vision of the outcomes they desired and the technology and process changes required to achieve them. The platform approach allows them to improve the level of patient care, safety, and satisfaction in one comprehensive solution, meeting their current and future needs,” concluded Mark Rheault, President and CEO of Intelligent InSites.
About Butler Health System
Butler Health System (BHS) is a community health system that provides healthcare services in Western Pennsylvania. They are a network of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals, personally invested in the community, who are focused on providing individualized care for every patient we treat. At BHS, they are neighbors taking care of neighbors for the benefit of the whole community. The centerpiece of BHS is Butler Memorial Hospital, founded in Butler County, Pennsylvania in 1898. BHS currently has 1,700 employees and continues to grow throughout the region. For more information, please visit www.butlerhealthsystem.org.
About Ekahau
Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based RTLS solutions. Ekahau’s customers, including several Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi based location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools. Ekahau’s solutions are being used in more than 300 hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturers, mining/oil/gas companies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners include wireless software developers, leading system integrators and international OEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau is a U.S. based corporation, with headquarters in Reston, Va. and other offices in Saratoga, CA; Helsinki, Finland; Tokyo; and Hong Kong, China. For more information, please visit www.ekahau.com.
About Intelligent InSites
Intelligent InSites is transforming the healthcare industry by driving significant, measurable, and sustainable financial and quality-of-care improvements in hospitals and senior care communities by delivering on the vision of the Real-Time Enterprise. By providing a single software platform capable of automating and streamlining dozens of systems and processes using real-time location and sensory data continuously collected throughout the enterprise, Intelligent InSites helps healthcare organizations gain visibility into their operations and make profound improvements in the area of workflow optimization, patient and resident safety, asset and inventory management, and regulatory compliance. For more information, visit www.IntelligentInSites.com.
About Vocera Communications
Vocera Communications, Inc., is the leading provider of voice communications systems designed to restore the human connection to healthcare. By providing integrated communications solutions for voice and alarm and alert systems, Vocera allows care teams, patients and loved ones to exchange critical information at the point of care. Exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association, the Vocera system is installed in more than 600 hospitals with 450,000 daily users worldwide. For more information, visit: www.vocera.com.
