Hospitals can be huge, intimidating places when you’re sick and scared.
In an effort to calm the nerves of patients, help guide them through multiple appointments, and enhance the overall patient experience, Cleveland Clinic is using a new kind of patient GPS that tracks patients from check-in to check-out.
Patients visiting Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute are the first to utilize the new GPS system, which was created uniquely for Glickman Tower and is currently the only clinic site in the world where it is available.
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In 2007 alone, the Urological Institute saw 110,000 patients and performed more than 21,000 surgical procedures.
Urology patients tend to have multiple appointments and stops to make during one visit, making it difficult to know where they are at all times.
The tracking devices look like ID badges and are scanned into a computer system when a patient checks in.
The system uses radio frequency identification and the badges are tracked via sensors strategically placed in the ceiling.
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WKYC-TV Website WKYC provides comprehensive media coverage of the business of health care in Cleveland. WKYC is also a MedCityNews syndication partner.
Medical staff is able to look at real-time, color-coded computer screens in order to see where patients are and how they are progressing through their visit.
For example, a patient in the waiting room appears as a little blue icon and the exam room turns from green to yellow when that patient enters an exam room with a physician.
Nurses, doctors and techs all have different colored icons so the staff can easily see who is treating the patient and when. There is also a timer on the patient icon to remedy excessive wait times.
The Urology Institute used data collected by the system to enhance the patient experience and make improvements to the current system by reducing wait times and moving patients through the Institute more efficiently.
WKYC provides comprehensive media coverage of the business of health care in Cleveland. WKYC is also a MedCityNews syndication partner.
