Finding medical equipment in a hospital with beacons

The EYE Beacon is a small Bluetooth device that transmits its identifier at regular intervals. In the system each beacon is tied to a specific item: bed no. 14, a pump with an inventory number, a laptop on a trolley. The beacon itself determines nothing; it simply broadcasts.

The gateways are what listen to it. The most flexible option is the GH5200 personal tracker. A nurse carries it, and when she walks into a room the tracker scans the beacons around her. From the signal strength (RSSI) the platform works out which devices are nearby, and from the fixed beacon in the room, which room she is in. So every visit to a room refreshes the picture: pump no. 7 in room 312, bed no. 14 in the corridor by room 305.

The other gateway options are a smartphone with a third-party app, or a Teltonika Networks router installed permanently on the ward. Routers listen to their area continuously, with no involvement from staff, but each one needs power and a place on the ward. The GH5200 does not require fixed receivers in every area: it scans beacons wherever a member of staff goes, so data about rarely visited rooms are refreshed less often. In practice the options are combined: fixed gateways go into intensive care and the equipment store, while the other wards rely on the GH5200.

The EYE Beacon has an omnidirectional antenna: the signal spreads in every direction rather than in a narrow beam. For hospital rooms, where the beacon may hang on a wall and the equipment stands at any angle, that gives more even coverage.

What the staff get. Opening the app, a nurse sees where the nearest free pump is and goes straight to it. Before admitting a patient you can check whether there is a bed in the room. The ward's logistics coordinator sees how many beds there are in each ward and how many more patients can be admitted. If equipment leaves the building or the ward, the system notes it, and the loss is spotted the same day rather than at the annual stocktake.

Over time the movement history turns into data for purchasing: which machines are in constant use and which have stood in a store room for months. The decision to buy the next batch of pumps is then made on actual utilisation.

The GH5200 also works for the safety of the staff themselves. It has a panic button: a nurse can call a doctor or report an incident, and the system will show the approximate location. Two-way voice is supported, so you can speak to a colleague without hunting for a telephone. A separate feature is time recording: it is visible when a member of staff visited a particular patient and how long they spent in different rooms.

The limits are worth understanding in advance. The accuracy is at room level, not centimetres. If staff with a GH5200 have not been into some part of the building for a long time, the data about it go stale, and fixed gateways are better there. And thick walls and metal structures weaken Bluetooth, so fixed beacons are positioned only after checking on site.

Last detection and acceptance. For every device the system shows the time it was last heard by a gateway. If a pump is listed as being in room 312 but the last detection was six hours ago, that does not mean it is there now: staff can see how old the data are and decide whether to go and check. The acceptance criterion for a pilot: a device placed in a known room shows up in that very room after a round with the GH5200 or from a fixed gateway's data. The GH5200 is charged every shift, and that rule goes into the ward procedure, while beacon batteries are checked from the system's own data.