Mike McGuinness, president and CEO of PanGo.
PanGo has announced that West Jefferson Medical Center is the newest addition to its rapidly growing customer base. West Jefferson is deploying the PanGo asset tracking solution to locate, manage and maximize usage of nearly 1,000 high-value patient care assets.
Tracking equipment across a 540,000 square foot facility can be a daunting task, and often results in costly over-procurement to ensure that critical, life-saving equipment is available, when and where it's needed. PanGo's asset tracking solution will help West Jefferson significantly reduce unnecessary purchases, improve hospital-wide asset utilization and increase Central Sterilization staff efficiency by eliminating the time spent searching for equipment.
"We're committed to delivering quality patient care. In order to do that, we continue to embrace new technology," said Mary Ann Romano, director of materials management at West Jefferson. "After an extensive search of asset-tracking technologies, the PanGo solution quickly emerged as the most comprehensive, flexible and scalable solution available."
West Jefferson, a 451-bed non-profit hospital located in Marrero, Louisiana, selected PanGo for its market leading PanGo Locator asset tracking application and open, standards-based PanOS Platform architecture, which allows customers to leverage location data from a wide variety of location-tracking technologies and easily integrate it into hospital systems and applications. The PanGo deployment will utilize West Jefferson's existing IT infrastructure and network investments, including its newly installed Cisco Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP) infrastructure installed by Global Data Systems (GDS).
"We wanted to build out a wireless network for our clinicians and guests, but we struggled with finding an effective model that proved its return on investment," said Clint Sonier, infrastructure director of West Jefferson. "GDS and PanGo helped us identify the ROI opportunity in the form of quicker equipment turnaround, more productive staff and improved billing processes. In addition, patients will be interrupted less by processes like seeking equipment, and their guests can care for them while maintaining access to the office with Internet access -- a premier guest service which eases lengthy hospital stays."
Keeping Tabs On Critical Equipment
West Jefferson will place PanGo RFID tags on nearly 1,000 pieces of patient care equipment, including IV's, ventilators and wheelchairs, providing medical staff with real-time access to data on where the equipment is located throughout the hospital and whether it's in use. In a follow-on phase of deployment, West Jefferson will be integrating asset location information into their patient workflow and accounting system, helping to streamline critical hospital processes.
"Healthcare organizations are facing ever-increasing pressure to improve the quality and speed of patient care, while keeping costs in check," said Mike McGuinness, president and CEO of PanGo. "Effective asset-tracking alone can save organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars, every year. When you couple that with our solution approach to asset tracking, an organization can truly transform itself by leveraging location data to improve mission-critical business processes."
West Jefferson Medical Center is a 451-bed community service district hospital located in the heart of Jefferson Parish on the West Bank. Just 10 minutes from Downtown New Orleans, West Jefferson Medical Center, which opened in 1960, offers preventive, acute, and rehabilitative care as well with Home Health and Hospice -- and a myriad of outpatient testing and diagnostic services. A hospital of many firsts, West Jefferson Medical Center established Louisiana's first hospital based aero-medical program in 1979 and the region's first hospital sponsored Fitness Center in the mid-80's. Another division of the Medical Center, launched in the 1980's, is its five location primary care Family Doctors clinics. West Jefferson is committed to continuing to develop its arsenal to fight disease and improve health and was recently the first hospital in Louisiana to introduce a CyberKnife for the treatment of previously inoperable brain tumors and other tumors of the body.
West Jefferson's Medical Staff is comprised of more than 420 physicians. Recent additions for the hospital and community health system include a new Fitness Center and Wellness Complex located in Terrytown Louisiana, the fifth Family Doctors location located in Lafitte, Louisiana; and new services including the region's first dedicated Neurovascular and Acute Stroke Unit, a Hyperbaric Medicine Center, a Diabetes, Endocrine and Wound Care Program.
