Find every pump. Move every patient. Prove every metric.
TRACIO designs and delivers hospital-grade real-time location programmes that hit the KPIs the COO, CNO, and CMIO actually report. BLE 5.x AoA, UWB, Passive RFID — integrated with Epic, Cerner Oracle Health, Meditech, and your biomed CMMS.
Healthcare: the use case, and the numbers it moves.
The right radio for each job — chosen, never sold — mapped to your use case. That is what makes the ROI fast.
1 · Tag
Mobile equipment, beds and staff carry BLE or UWB tags.
2 · Locate
Find any pump, cart or asset in under 30 seconds.
3 · Integrate
Location flows to Epic, Cerner, CMMS and nurse-call.
BLE 5.x AoA → assets · UWB → precision · RFID → supplies
What we keep seeing in Healthcare programmes.
Equipment hunting
Clinical staff lose 20+ minutes per shift hunting for pumps, telemetry, wheelchairs. Capital rental balloons to cover for what's actually on the floor — somewhere.
Patient flow bottlenecks
ED throughput, bed turn, and discharge readiness all run on tribal knowledge instead of a real signal. LOS suffers. HCAHPS suffers.
Compliance pressure
Joint Commission tracer methodology, hand-hygiene attestation, infant security — every audit is a fire drill instead of an evidenced answer.
The use cases that consistently pay back.
Mobile medical equipment locating
BLE 5.x AoA across acute care floors. Find any pump, monitor, IV stand within 1–3 metres in under 30 seconds. Direct integration with biomed CMMS for work-order automation.
Patient flow analytics
Real-time bed-state, dwell, and transition events feeding Epic / Cerner. ED-to-floor handoff measured in minutes, not estimated.
Staff safety & duress
Wearable duress badges with sub-room location precision. Code Blue response time measured and improved.
Infant security
UWB or BLE infant-protection programmes with audit-grade chain-of-custody.
Hand-hygiene attestation
Tag-and-dispenser proximity events captured automatically. Compliance dashboards integrated with infection-prevention reporting.
Clinical workflow integration
HL7 v2 / FHIR R4 bridges into Epic, Cerner Oracle Health, Meditech. Location signal triggers nurse-call escalations, OR scheduling adjustments, discharge readiness flags.
Hardware & software ecosystem
CenTrak · Stanley Healthcare (Aeroscout) · Sonitor · AiRISTA Flow · Kontakt.io Care · Midmark · Versus / Midmark RTLS
Where we plug in
Epic · Cerner Oracle Health · Meditech · Allscripts · ServiceNow IRM/HAM · Biomed CMMS (Maximo, Nuvolo, Connectiv)
Our biomed team was losing hours a day hunting for pumps. BLE locating across our acute sites cut about 26 minutes of search time per nurse per shift and dropped rental spend 38%, with payback inside nine months. Adoption held because they designed it around clinical workflow and our Epic integration first, not the hardware.Director of Clinical Engineering · multi-site hospital group · EMEAAnonymised at the client’s request. Reference available on request.
What we design and document to
HIPAA · HITECH · HL7 v2 / FHIR R4 · Joint Commission tracer methodology · AAMI EQ56 · Care Coordination Performance Measures
Healthcare — where the payback shows up.
Infusion pump & mobile equipment tracking
Clinical staff stop hunting for pumps, telemetry and wheelchairs. BLE 5.x AoA and UWB locating cut search time per shift and rental spend by around 38%.
Patient flow & bed management
Bed-state and patient-flow events speed ED throughput and bed turn, integrated with the EMR — length of stay down by over a day in comparable programmes.
Hand-hygiene & staff safety
Automated hand-hygiene compliance, infant security, and staff-duress badges raise audit scores and protect lone clinicians.
Further reading: RTLS for hospitals — equipment, patient flow & safety · UWB vs BLE · RTLS cost guide
Common use cases — what we keep seeing.
Hand-hygiene compliance with point-of-care attribution
Problem: Hand-hygiene compliance is regulator-required (WHO, CDC, NHS) but self-reported compliance overstates real behaviour by 20-40%.
Tech mix: BLE-AoA or UWB on staff badges, BLE/IR sensors on dispensers and bed locations, attribution of every hand-hygiene event to a specific patient encounter.
Outcome: Verified hand-hygiene compliance from 60% to 90%+, HAI rates reduced 20-30%, CMS/CQC compliance evidence.
Infant protection at bed level
Problem: Infant abduction is a low-frequency catastrophic event — bed-level certainty of infant location is mandatory for maternity units.
Tech mix: BLE-AoA or ultrasound tags on infants, exit-door access control, real-time bed-level position monitoring.
Outcome: Zero abduction events post-deployment, mother-infant matching verified, Joint Commission compliance.
Surgical-instrument tracking
Problem: Surgical sets contain hundreds of instruments; tracking through sterilisation, OR use, and re-processing prevents loss and ensures every instrument is on every set.
Tech mix: UWB or sub-cm RTLS on every instrument, fixed readers at sterilisation, OR and storage, integration with sterile-processing software.
Outcome: Instrument loss reduced 80%+, OR set readiness 99%+, never-event risk on retained instruments reduced.
Capital asset utilisation (infusion pumps, ventilators)
Problem: Hospital capital equipment is over-bought because finding free units is slow — actual utilisation is often 30-50% while clinicians can't locate equipment.
Tech mix: BLE-AoA or Wi-Fi RTLS on every device, room-level zone visibility, integration with biomedical engineering CMMS.
Outcome: Capital purchases reduced 15-30%, clinician search time eliminated, biomedical PM compliance improved.
Patient flow & length-of-stay reduction
Problem: Patient throughput in ED, OR and inpatient units depends on visibility of patient location and process status — opaque flow creates bottlenecks.
Tech mix: BLE-AoA on patient bands, EMR integration for process events, dashboards for ED-to-floor and OR-to-discharge flow.
Outcome: ED length of stay reduced 15-25%, OR turnover faster, inpatient throughput up 10-20%.
Wander prevention & elopement reduction
Problem: Confused, dementia, or post-anaesthesia patients can wander; elopement risk is highest in geriatric and behavioural-health units.
Tech mix: BLE wander-management tags on patients, exit-door interlocks, nursing-station alerts on zone-breach.
Outcome: Elopement events reduced 70%+, staff-to-patient response time faster, family confidence improved.
Staff safety / lone-worker duress
Problem: Healthcare staff face workplace violence — clinical units, psych and ED especially; staff must be able to summon help with location.
Tech mix: BLE-AoA or UWB duress badges, bed-level alarm raising, integration with security and unit-staff alert.
Outcome: Staff duress response time <60 sec, perceived safety improved, regulator/insurer compliance evidence.
Specimen and lab-sample tracking
Problem: Lab specimens (blood, tissue, biopsy) must be tracked from draw to result — lost specimens cause re-draws, delays and patient anxiety.
Tech mix: Passive RFID on every specimen, fixed readers at draw, transport, lab and result, EMR integration for chain-of-custody.
Outcome: Specimen loss eliminated, turn-around time reduced 20-30%, re-draw rate <0.5%.
Consignment stock & implant tracking
Problem: Consignment implants (orthopaedic, cardiac) are high-value and have expiry dates — managing them manually creates waste and OR-readiness issues.
Tech mix: Passive RFID on every implant, smart cabinet at OR consumable storage, integration with materials management and case-cart preparation.
Outcome: Consignment write-offs reduced 30-50%, OR set-readiness 99%, implant chain-of-custody for patient record.
Hospital bed and stretcher fleet management
Problem: Hospitals hold hundreds of beds and stretchers; finding a clean discharge-ready bed takes 5-20 min during peak turnover.
Tech mix: BLE-AoA on beds and stretchers, status (clean/dirty/in-use) from bedside terminals, integration with bed-management software.
Outcome: Bed turnover time reduced 30-50%, ED-to-floor wait time down, discharge throughput improved.
Related reading.
Frequently asked questions
What can RTLS track in a hospital?
Mobile medical equipment such as infusion pumps, wheelchairs and beds, staff duress and safety, patient and people flow, temperature for vaccines and blood, hand-hygiene compliance, and overall asset utilisation - often on one platform.
How accurate does healthcare RTLS need to be?
It varies by use case. Room or bay level (BLE or Wi-Fi) is enough for equipment and patient flow; bed or centimetre level (UWB) suits workflow analytics and infant protection; choke-point reads (RFID) handle sterile-instrument tracking.
Is RTLS safe and compliant in clinical settings?
Yes. The low-power radio used by BLE, UWB and RFID is non-interfering with medical devices, and we design to your IT security, data-privacy (GDPR or HIPAA-equivalent) and clinical-engineering requirements from day one.
Will it integrate with our EHR, CMMS and nurse-call systems?
Yes. Location and event data feeds your EHR, biomedical CMMS, RTLS-aware nurse-call and building systems through standard interfaces, so the information lands where clinicians and engineers already work.
Do we need new Wi-Fi or cabling?
Not always. Some solutions ride your existing Wi-Fi or BLE; others need dedicated anchors. We survey first and reuse infrastructure wherever it meets the accuracy you need.