Milwaukee, WI – June 9, 2017 – GE Healthcare is introducing Encompass, a cost-effective solution that helps hospitals manage mobile asset inventory, reduce total cost of ownership and achieve better capital allocation. It enables healthcare providers to find critical mobile assets in real-time with accuracy and ease so they can spend less time searching for equipment and more time focused on providing quality patient care.
Over the past 15 years, real-time location systems (RTLS) have been proven to help hospitals significantly improve management of critical mobile clinical assets, right-size inventories, and save up to millions of dollars in capital and maintenance costs.[1] However, significant obstacles around implementation of traditional RTLS – including large capital expenditures and long, disruptive deployment programs – have limited its market penetration to just 15 to 20 percent.[2]
Encompass is poised to achieve new levels of RTLS adoption by helping your facility enable better patient care, operational efficiency and financial performance with a simple, fast, flexible and cost-efficient solution. Built upon open standards and commercial Bluetooth Low Energy wireless technology that leverages a hospital’s existing Wi-Fi® network, this approach eliminates the classic objections to proprietary hard-wired locating systems. For example:
- It can be installed in a matter of days instead of months, and without opening ceilings or drilling into walls to run cable.
- The capital and installation cost is up to 60 percent lower than for cabled RTLS. There is no requirement for separate, dedicated on-site application and database servers for the hospital to maintain and no dedicated software to update. Furthermore, the applications can be provided as a subscription service.
- The system readily scales to accommodate growth and can be easily reconfigured if hospital layouts are redesigned or repurposed.
- As a cloud-based application, the location system is accessible to any authorized staff member and from any computer or mobile device with internet access.
“Finally, there is an asset tracking solution that isn’t so problematic to implement,” said Rob Reilly, Vice President and General Manager, U.S. & Canada Services, GE Healthcare. “Also, the opportunity for ROI is quicker. We believe this means that nursing and HTM departments who have been asking for real-time asset tracking capabilities are going to start getting approvals from decision-makers.”
Encompass combines the experience of GE Healthcare in medical devices and hospital operations management with the expertise of its technology partner, Zebra Technologies, a market leader in enterprise mobile computing solutions.
“Zebra is pleased to collaborate with GE Healthcare as we see transformative value from this innovative, practical, and easy-to-implement solution,” said Chris Sullivan, Global Healthcare Practice Lead, Zebra Technologies. “With Enterprise Asset Intelligence built by real-time visibility, clinicians now have reduced operational distractions and a greater ability to maximize their focus on patient care. This is a good thing for all of us, and contributes to a higher-quality, lower-cost patient care environment.”
GE Healthcare’s asset performance management (APM) solutions use data and analytics to help improve the reliability and availability of a hospital’s assets, minimize total cost of ownership, and reduce operational risks. GE Healthcare’s APM vision is to give healthcare providers a holistic, unified view of their GE and non-GE assets by seamlessly integrating with their existing data stores. Encompass fits into the APM ecosystem of predicting, maintaining, locating and analyzing the asset fleet and related operational activities so that the right decisions can be made at the right time.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter – great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
About Zebra
With the unparalleled operational visibility Zebra (NASDAQ: ZBRA) provides, enterprises become as smart and connected as the world we live in. Real-time information – gleaned from visionary solutions including hardware, software and services – give organizations the competitive edge they need to simplify operations, know more about their businesses and customers, and empower their mobile workers to succeed in today’s data-centric world. For more information, visit www.zebra.com or sign up for our news alerts. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Media Contacts
Holly Roloff
GE Healthcare
+1 414 429 6998
Bill Abelson
Zebra Technologies
+1 631 738 4751
bill.abelson@zebra.com
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[1] Out of Control: How clinical asset proliferation and low utilization are draining healthcare budgets, 2012
[2] TechNation Magazine, “Roundtable: Real Time Location Systems,” March 2017
http://www.genewsroom.com/press-releases/encompass-offers-benefits-real-time-location-system-simple-fast-flexible-cost