How RTLS Data Improves Practice Management & Efficiencies

At CenTrak, real-life experiences from team members are leveraged to help healthcare clients fully utilize real-time technologies. David Kame, MBA, MHA, a Clinical Healthcare Consultant with over twelve years in healthcare administration, shares insights on how Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) can benefit clinical leaders such as administrators, directors, and nurse managers.

Why Should Clinic Administrators and Healthcare Leaders Use RTLS?

Primary goals for clinic administrators often include increasing patient access, improving throughput, optimizing resources, providing exceptional care, and achieving high customer satisfaction. Achieving all these goals simultaneously is challenging and requires a multi-faceted approach. Constraints such as exam room capacity, staffing, and bottlenecks can limit patient throughput. RTLS provides real-time visibility into clinic operations, allowing issues to be addressed proactively rather than reactively.

RTLS-driven patient flow systems offer unlimited potential for impact and problem-solving in recurring operational challenges.

Reducing Variability in the Patient Experience

Delivering a consistent experience to every patient requires staff to operate uniformly in quality and timing. RTLS provides accurate, real-time, and historical data on:

• ​Time spent with patients
• ​Time patients are unattended in exam rooms
• ​Staff interaction times
• ​Patient wait times for staff
• ​Duration of each phase of a clinic visit

Inconsistencies in these areas are quickly noticed by patients and can impact care delivery. RTLS data helps identify deviations, such as a nurse spending significantly more or less time with patients than average. This insight can be used for coaching and support rather than penalization. RTLS data also informs the creation or revision of standard operating procedures (SOPs), such as determining reasonable times for specific tasks.

Driving Patient Throughput with RTLS-Based Patient Flow

RTLS offers unmatched real-time visibility and awareness. For example, during a typical clinic visit:

• ​Registration: RTLS can track traditional wait times and processing times, allowing leaders to identify and address bottlenecks.
• ​Waiting Area: Leaders can monitor current and historical wait times, identify which providers or appointment types have the longest waits, and apply best practices from top performers to others.
• ​Vitals Stations: RTLS can reveal bottlenecks, station usage, and equipment sufficiency.
• ​Exam Room: RTLS tracks the time nurses or medical assistants spend with patients and the subsequent wait for providers. Variations in provider efficiency can be identified and addressed, such as adjusting appointment scheduling or improving provider efficiency.

This data supports better in-the-moment decisions, such as prioritizing which patient should be seen next or prepping exam rooms efficiently.

Improving Patient Flow with RTLS Data

RTLS software enables quick visual analysis using heat maps to highlight busy times, days, and areas where capacity exceeds demand. Comparing heat maps over time helps determine the impact of process changes. The goal is to level volume and reduce peaks and valleys throughout the day.

Leaders can analyze wait times by hour or service line to identify root causes of delays. Deviations between scheduling and reality are often due to not following SOPs, which can be addressed through meetings or additional training. RTLS data allows for detailed drill-downs to pinpoint issues.

The Most Important Aspect of RTLS Data

RTLS data is powerful because it is automatically collected, making it timely, accurate, and unbiased. This eliminates reliance on manual notation, which is prone to human error, and is critical for process improvements without added labor costs.

Timeliness

Operations leaders can make instant, proactive changes to address issues before they require service recovery. RTLS continuously collects data, eliminating the need for labor-intensive time studies.

Accuracy

Unlike manual observation, which can alter behavior and only captures a fraction of time, RTLS collects continuous data for all patients. This supports root cause identification, validates process changes, and enables ongoing improvement.

Unbiased Nature

RTLS data removes subjectivity from discussions about delays or inefficiencies. Evidence-based information fosters productive conversations and drives change without blame, encouraging data-driven process improvements.

Impact on Patient Satisfaction

Aligning patient expectations with actual visit times increases satisfaction. RTLS-enabled patient flow solutions create a more consistent and reproducible patient experience, benefiting both patients and staff by simplifying workflows and allowing more time for patient care.

Healthcare leaders interested in leveraging RTLS to reduce wait times, increase access, and improve satisfaction are encouraged to explore further solutions or set up a demo.