How Can The Healthcare Industry Use Asset Tracking Software?

Published on March 25, 2022 • 3 min read

The healthcare industry is high pressure. Decisions need to be made quickly to ensure patients are getting the best possible treatment. Because of this, equipment needs to be maintained, clean, and effective for as long as possible.

Fundamentally, asset tracking software is the best way to ensure that healthcare assets are maintained well and fit for purpose, while also ensuring accountability and a visible audit trail.

Asset tracking software has many other benefits, too, including cost and time savings. This means more budget and more time to improve welfare and focus on other critical, daily challenges.

What Assets Can You Track?

So, what assets can you track using asset tracking software? The answer is simple… Anything! Any bit of kit, any consumable, any high-value tech can be monitored, maintained, and tracked using asset management systems.

This is as asset tracking software works by allowing you to create unique asset profiles for your equipment, similar to social media accounts. Each of your assets will get a profile with space to record what its status is, where it is and who has been using it.

Therefore, if you're tracking PPE, you can log who it belongs to and when it was last used. If you're tracking critical kit, you can add preventative maintenance reminders and show where it was last logged in, for example, a hospital.

The possibilities are endless, which means you can have a clear, robust healthcare asset register of everything you own.

Fixed Asset Management Benefits

The benefits of fixed asset management build on the practical, day to day benefits of a visible audit trail. A visible audit trail, for example, makes it easier to find and use kit and gives you the peace of mind that it's maintained.

Fixed asset management, however, gives you more cost benefits and ensures operational risks are mitigated. With a clear fixed asset register, for example, it's much more difficult to purchase duplicates.

Then, ghost and zombie assets are also avoided. Ghost and zombie assets can create difficulties in sourcing equipment and can create tax and insurance risks, too, so they can be costly.

Overall, fixed healthcare asset management solutions reduce accounting risks and errors, which means better financial health, but also fewer operational mishaps.

Fixed RFID Asset Tracking Solutions

Now, it's possible to take all of this further and automate location tracking, too. With a fixed RFID tracking solution, you can track which ward your assets are in without any manual intervention. You can also improve the safety of high-risk patients by automating security measures using fixed RFID.

How does this all work? It takes the concept of unique assets to the next level. 

As all of your assets are unique, you can tag them with unique QR codes, barcodes, and RFID tags. When you use QR code or barcode asset tags, you can run audits and discover assets just by using your phone's camera.

Every time you scan an asset's tag, that asset's profile will open and its last seen location will update. Therefore, if you spot an issue, you can simply scan the tag and report it.

RFID automates this. With RFID, you can scan tags from a distance using RFID readers. Therefore, you can audit a room and detect the assets within from outside so as to not disturb patients. You can also bulk scan assets, saving you time.

Fixed RFID is the next level up. This allows you to affix readers on choke points. Then, whenever a tag passes through the readers' field, the location will update automatically to log that an asset has just entered a certain location.

The Benefits Of Healthcare Asset Tracking

Asset tracking software for healthcare has clear benefits. With asset management systems in place, you can save time, save money, increase visibility over assets, increase security, increase accountability and more.

In a high-pressure environment, the fewer decisions you need to make the better. With fixed RFID asset tracking and with conventional asset management, a lot of your operations are automated and more transparent, making it easier to know what you need to maintain and where.

Overall, healthcare asset tracking software gives you more control over your assets in an environment where this is critical.

To find out more about how itemit's asset tracking software can help you, you can fill in the form below to start your 14-day free trial. You can also contact the team at team@itemit.com or 01223421622. We'll help you get set up and running.