U.S. Medical Equipment Consultants Inc. (USMedic) engaged with VMware’s Pivotal Labs to create, test, and deploy a solution that enables healthcare organizations to quickly locate and manage critical medical equipment used to care for patients with COVID-19. In addition to providing equipment location data, the solution allows users to determine equipment’s availability for use with patients, request equipment repair service and perform other vital equipment management duties using a smartphone or tablet.
During the course of its work with various healthcare organizations in the United States, USMedic was made aware that hospital staff were often spending many hours a day merely locating vital medical equipment needed to deliver critical care to patients.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue has been exacerbated in many healthcare systems as equipment is re-distributed to facilities throughout the systems based on surging patient volumes. While existing equipment tracking options are available, these solutions can take many months of work to deploy and frequently cost millions of dollars to implement.
Based on input from healthcare professionals, it was determined that an alternative solution was needed that could be launched in days, without system integration or the need to purchase costly equipment to deploy. A cross-functional team was established to deliver the solution in the months preceding the surge of COVID-19. The newly developed solution can be used with hospitals that have not already implemented a comprehensive equipment management system or to augment existing systems.
To ensure the equipment tracking and management solution fulfilled the real-world needs of hospitals, the group utilized the expertise of industry veterans from Bayhealth Medical Center led by Brian Dolan, MHSA, CMRP, vice president, Resource Management at Bayhealth to provide guidance and feedback on the solution.
Dolan says, “The Bayhealth team was excited to assist with the continued development and testing of the solution. We felt the project was worthy of our time and are hopeful that the solution will provide much needed relief for hospitals struggling with tracking their equipment during this challenging time.”
“We greatly appreciate the help from VMware with this initiative. They have graciously provided extensive support and resources to help make this vital solution a reality,” says Sean Stapleton CEO of USMedic. “Moreover, we are grateful for the support and guidance from Brian Dolan and the Bayhealth team, who volunteered their limited time to help with this project.”
The equipment tracking and management solution can be rapidly deployed in a flexible and modular manner, without the need for costly physical infrastructure investments or IT integration.
Featured image: U.S. Medical Equipment Consultants Inc. (courtesy USMedic)
