The mobile phone has become a central tool for the logistics and task management of hospitals
Today, tracking and localisation are essential tools for hospitals to keep an overview and offer the flexibility that is expected from modern hospitals. As a result, the mobile phone and its ability to track has become a central instrument when handling patients, employees, equipment and aid.
The larger hospitals in Aalborg and Aarhus already have several years of experience with tracking as they were introduced to Columna Service Logistics in 2017. Columna Service Logistics digitise the porters’ tasks by tracking the porters and their assignments. That way, the porter who is closest to the assignment can always be located.
According to Godtsygehusbyggeri.dk, hospitals quickly saw the potential in tracking and has since expanded the staff group to not only cover the porters: “Today, it is not only the porters but also the medical laboratory technicians, the cleaning staff and other transport assignments that are controlled by the system. Each staff group has its own icon and different colours mark the assignments’ status,” Steffen Ørnemark explains.
"A hospital is not a car factory, but we can learn from their way of thinking when it comes to flow. If we can make our logistics more efficient by thinking and planning in new ways, it will free up resources for the hospital’s main tasks", Steffen Ørnemark, Chief Consultant and Implementation responsible for Service Logistics at Aarhus University Hospital.
Tracking and locating technology are also used in other ways at hospitals: BørneRiget (Children Hospital) in Copenhagen is working on making a system where you can register on the phone. This system enables patients to check-in before they reach the hospital and afterwards it offers the patients directions on their phones to the right wing of the hospital.
Read more about how the hospitals work with tracking and optimization in the article here (in Danish).