Case Study: Cost Savings, Productivity Gains and Better Patient Care at a Major UK Hospital Center

By Charles Paumelle

Working with one of the largest and our technology partners, Microshare has transformed a major general hospital and trauma centre in northern England into a state-of-the-art Smart Hospital, providing immediate and dramatic increases in patient care, staff safety and comfort, and actionable intelligence on the performance and sustainability of key systems within this complex facility.

From the initial deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors that took less than a week in July 2019, the hospital and its operators have gained new insights into the needs and requirements of patients, doctors, relatives, and support staff by gathering data over a low-power wireless LoRaWAN connection that has no interaction with the hospital’s core computer networks. This latter point is a crucial part of Microshare’s approach to ring-fencing sensitive and highly regulated data held within any medical facility’s servers.

Since July 2019, six solutions have been implemented across the hospital with positive immediate impact on operations and patient care:

Predictive cleaning Implemented usage and feedback sensors in all public toilets to measure, improve cleanliness and prevent the spread of bacteria. This already has led to savings on repair via early leak identification.
Bed occupancy Occupancy sensors in hospital wards mitigate bed infection rate and bed allocation delays. This has proven invaluable in tracking bed cleaning and getting patients settled quickly.
Legionella prevention Implemented temperature sensors on boilers, calorifiers and pipes, resulting in cost savings vs. external audits and much richer information to identify risks of infection.
Wheelchair tracking Installed trackers on wheelchairs and scanners in key locations to know how many wheelchairs are available at any time. Working towards a 10% increase in productivity of hospital porters.
Energy reduction Installed wireless temperature sensors in areas where Building Management System was not available. This led to more efficient energy use and the resulting cost savings.
Fridge monitoring Installed wireless temperature sensors in fridges to eliminate the need for nurses to check manually. This has brought staff productivity gains and early warning of expiring medicines.

The whole solution was put in place in a few days and has been replicated in other parts of the hospital as well as other medical and commercial facilities around the world.

Charles Paumelle is the CMO and Co-founder of Microshare, Inc.  |  An evangelist for the Internet of Things, Charles was chosen as the Co-chair Marketing for the LoRa Alliance, the fastest-growing Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) organization.