CHARLOTTE, NC and NEWTOWN, PA /Marketwire/ -- Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering Inc., announced that it has signed an agreement with CenTrak Inc., to provide integrated workflow automation solutions to healthcare facilities. PCTS will use CenTrak's patented InTouchCare, a hybrid technology that combines a new generation of infrared and radio-frequency Identification (RFID) to track people and equipment to a room and individual bay.
CenTrak developed InTouchCare technology to provide a location-certainty by overcoming the inaccuracies of location-estimation hindered by issues of RF penetration of walls, ceilings, and floors. CenTrak patient and equipment tags use Gen2IR infrared light signals, which cannot penetrate walls to accurately locate people and movable medical equipment to a specific room. The active-RFID component is used to communicate the location information back to the network for maximum tag capacity and a fast response time. In this way, CenTrak provides room and subroom-level accuracy with certainty, not based on an estimate. Installation of a CenTrak InTouchCare network is simplified by using battery-powered components, which eliminate wiring and offer plug-and-play installation functionality. With RF and Infrared operating simultaneously, the sensors can operate continuously for up to five years on a set of batteries.
PCTS pioneered the use of real-time locating systems (RTLS) to automatically track patients and assets in emergency and surgical services departments and today provides purpose-built solutions for departmental to enterprisewide patient flow needs. Department-specific process rules recognize and timestamp patient care milestones, based on the measurement of location, movement, and interactions between patients, staff, and mobile medical equipment.
The location information together with patient data from other hospital information systems is visualized for caregivers in map and status screen views of patient flow. Additional intelligence interprets the meaning of patient status events and notifies appropriate staff in real time. Caregivers interact with the Web-based tracking software as their centralized workflow communications and management portal. In this way, caregivers can better anticipate and manage their workflows as they coordinate care between them. PCTS tracking solutions have supported over 4 million emergency department and perioperative patient encounters at leading hospitals nationwide.
About CenTrak
CenTrak Inc. is a leading provider of precise, adaptable, and cost-effective tracking solutions for healthcare, commercial, and industrial facilities. The company develops and markets hybrid active-RFID/Gen2IR network products used for tracking people and assets in real time, enabling greater workflow efficiency, asset use, and higher overall security. The patented InTouchCare RTLS offers "breakthrough performance and cost advantages that had been previously unattainable." It is the "first predominantly battery-powered RTLS network in the world," and it is currently operating in several world-class healthcare sites in the U.S.
About PCTS
Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering Inc., supports health care providers with intelligent workflow automation solutions to improve patient flow and reduce the risk of medical errors. The company's Amelior software suite includes Amelior ED, a comprehensive emergency department information system, and automatic patient and asset tracking software for the emergency department, perioperative suite, and enterprisewide needs. Amelior automatic tracking software is compatible with all leading locating hardware, including active-RFID, infrared, ultrasound, ultra-wideband, Wi-Fi, and ZigBee. PCTS customers have been recognized nationally for improvements in efficiency and clinical excellence.