Optimizing Clinical Spatial Resources with IoT

Abstract

The cost of healthcare is significant within Australia where $185.4 billion was spent in the 2017-2018 financial year. This expenditure represents 10% of Australian GDP and grew by a ten-year annual average of 3.9% to 2015-16 financial year. There is limited ability to demonstrate the efficient use of existing healthcare spaces while Capital Works expenditure continues to grow. Executive decision-makers and front-line managers currently lack tools to optimize space utilization, as current techniques are either burdensome, costly, or challenging to implement at scale. There is related literature that demonstrates the feasibility of using Internet of Things (IoT) to understand the utilization of non-clinical healthcare spaces. However, these technologies have not previously been validated as effective in an operational clinical setting. This paper presents findings from the introduction of an IoT-based space management system applied to a multi-disciplinary outpatient clinic in an operational public hospital fulltime across a six-month time period. Preliminary data validates IoT technology is appropriate for operational healthcare environments and is superior when compared to manual data collection methods.