Hospitals, practices and medical facilities can use foot traffic insights to enhance their efficiency. Many health care professionals understand the impact of smooth patient flow — from improving care coordination to boosting patient experience.
With the U.S. health care market profit pool expected to grow by $819 billion by 2027, this could mean more patients walking through your facility’s doors. Medical professionals must use this opportunity to gain as much information as possible to boost operations.
But how can they achieve all these benefits through data alone? People counting systems. These systems are valuable tools used in numerous industries.
Learn how these devices can make a profound impact, but first, let’s explore common hurdles in patient flow.
No matter how big or experienced a hospital or other medical facility is, some may still struggle to achieve a systematic patient flow. The following challenges are familiar faces in health care efficiency.
First, there is a looming issue many medical professionals and patients may face — long waiting times.
Longer waiting times mean overcrowded waiting areas and frustrated patients. Without real time patient movement monitoring, it can be challenging to prevent congestion or allocate staff to ease these bottlenecks.
There are two sides to this challenge — over- and under-utilized staff during shifts. Inaccurate patient volume predictions can result in poor resource allocation and, thus, compromise care quality.
Lastly, medical staff may experience patient flow management issues like inefficient room usage — which may cause a few scheduling headaches. Without precise data to work from, certain spaces might remain empty or overlooked.
A people counting system can address each of these major challenges. To understand how these systems can help, you need to explore how they operate.
People counting systems use sensors, image processing, and data analytics to monitor the flow of patients in and out of specific areas in real time. These devices typically rely on a few technologies, such as infrared beams, Wi-Fi, or image processing sensors to track movements.
In a healthcare setting, they help monitor patient foot traffic in waiting areas, examination rooms and other appropriate spaces. The data collected by these systems is then analyzed to provide insights into patient flow management.
For example, they can share real-time alerts to notify staff when waiting rooms are nearing capacity. Medical providers can thus take immediate action to reduce this congestion. Over time, these systems can also identify patient flow patterns. Administrators can use this information to adjust staffing levels and appointment schedules based on peak times.
All in all, people counting systems paint a bigger picture of your facility. A different perspective, backed by data analytics, helps practitioners improve their health care efficiency.
In health care, efficiency and patient experiences are critical — and people counting systems can help with both.
Here are several benefits you may experience once you implement this system into your facility.
A people counting system’s ability to monitor how patients move through different rooms and spaces can help with patient flow management. This data allows facilities to identify bottlenecks before they become problematic.
For instance, if the system detects that the waiting area is nearing its capacity, staff can use this information to quickly take action. Whether the facility uses these insights to adjust its patient intake processes or reassign staff to manage this overflow, without a people counting device, this may have gone unnoticed.
People counting devices and software can help improve patient flow in real-time.
Hospital occupancy varies during the day, and facilities can use people counting systems to analyze foot traffic patterns over time. As we’ve discussed, one of the major challenges you may face is uneven staffing — where certain times of the day experience sporadic patient surges while others remain slow yet consistent.
That’s where people counting systems can shine some light. These systems provide and store accurate data on peak hours, which facilities can use to adjust their staffing based on occupancy levels.
With better staff distribution, hospitals and clinics can avoid over and understaffing.
Long wait times can negatively affect patient satisfaction and, in some cases, patient outcomes. However, with people counting systems, healthcare facilities can use these devices to track occupancy and patient flow. Doing so will help them identify when and where these delays are happening.
They can then use this data to streamline processes like scheduling and staff shifts. Real-time tracking of room occupancy ensures quicker room turnovers and helps staff prepare for incoming patients without unnecessary delays.
The result? A proactive approach to wait time reduction.
People counting devices and software may also help optimize the use of physical resources. They provide detailed insights into how spaces are being used and how often they’re occupied.
For example, if certain areas of the hospital are underutilized, administrators can reallocate resources or adjust the layout to better meet patient needs. Similarly, people counting systems can prevent overuse of key spaces, reducing strain on facilities and equipment.
The collective benefits mentioned above ultimately ripple down into your patients’ experiences as well. These systems create a smoother patient experience by reducing wait times, optimizing staff allocation and ensuring sufficient resource use.
When patients experience shorter waits, more attentive care and seamless transitions through different stages of treatment, their overall satisfaction improves. Patient retention and positive word-of-mouth may be another result.
However, with more patients visiting your facility, the more important a reliable people counting system becomes.
Efficient use of staff, space and resources ultimately translates to cost savings. With the benefits of people counting systems, hospitals, clinics and practices can reduce unnecessary waste and prevent staffing issues.
The ability to analyze foot traffic and adjust operations accordingly ensures that hospitals and clinics are running as efficiently as possible. Over time, this leads to lower operational costs. The best part is that the quality of your care ought not to decrease with your costs — it may experience the opposite.
Because people counting systems can provide data and help you identify trends, you can make better decisions. For instance, facility administrators can analyze trends over weeks or months to determine where improvements can be made.
Equipped with this information, administrators can implement more effective operational strategies — be it restructuring the layout, revising scheduling policies or improving patient routing.
At Traf-Sys, we’re familiar with the unique challenges of managing foot traffic in health care settings. That’s why we provide tailored solutions to ensure you receive precise, real time data to make key decisions.
Facilities may experience these benefits with our advanced people-counting technology, such as the Eclipse and Spectrum 3D people counters.
Get in touch with us today to learn how our solutions can refine patient flow management.
