Wireless tag reader for advanced healthcare article tracking system
AssigneePeritas AI Inc.
InventorsMartin Roche, Joseph DeCerce
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Various sensing technologies may be used together for an advanced healthcare article tracking system to track items within a hospital. Asset tracking may therefore be implemented to provide both humans and robots the ability to track assets as they are stored and moved about within the hospital, with the system also optimizing the scheduling and utilization of operating rooms based on the tracking of the hospital's assets. In one particular instance, a Bluetooth tag reader or other wireless tag reader may be implemented to allow the tracking of hospital assets throughout the hospital.
Claims20
An apparatus, comprising:
- a housing;
- a processor system coupled to the housing;
- a Bluetooth (BT) board coupled to the housing and accessible to the processor system;
- a power over ethernet (POE) board coupled to the housing and accessible to the processor system;
- and
- storage coupled to the housing and accessible to the processor system, the storage comprising instructions executable by the processor system to:
- use the BT board to receive one or more signals from a BT tag associated with a healthcare-related article;
- use the one or more signals to determine a location of the BT tag and to determine an identifier associated with the BT tag;
- and
- transmit, using the POE board and to a server of a healthcare facility, data indicating the location and the identifier.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a housing;
- a processor system coupled to the housing;
- a printed circuit board (PCB) assembly with a first transceiver and a second transceiver, the PCB assembly coupled to the housing and accessible to the processor system;
- storage coupled to the housing and accessible to the processor system, the storage comprising instructions executable by the processor system to:
- use the first transceiver to receive one or more signals from a tracking tag associated with a healthcare-related article;
- use the one or more signals to determine a location of the tracking tag and to determine an identifier for the healthcare-related article;
- and
- transmit, using the second transceiver and to a server of a healthcare facility, data indicating the location and the identifier.
A method, comprising:
- using a mesh of Bluetooth (BT) tag trackers to track a location of a BT tag as the BT tag moves about a healthcare facility, the BT tag associated with a first healthcare-related article;
- using a mesh of second trackers to track a location of a second tag as the second tag moves about the healthcare facility, the second trackers being different from the BT tag trackers, the second tag being different from the first tag, the second tag associated with a second healthcare-related article different from the first healthcare-related article;
- using the location of the BT tag and the location of the second tag to infer that the first healthcare-related article is transporting the second healthcare-related article;
- and
- based on the inference, taking one or more actions to notify one or more healthcare personnel of the healthcare facility of an estimated time of arrival (ETA) of the second healthcare-related article.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.