Getting the best out of existing infrastructure

This section covers considerations of re-use of existing infrastructure to maximise return on investment.

Wi-Fi infrastructures are widespread in healthcare environments, even down to small GP surgeries and the costs to install, maintain and refresh this infrastructure are already borne by NHS organisations.

It is strongly advised to consider using the current Wi-Fi solution as the basis of any RTLS solution for a trust, thus maximising the investment already made in this infrastructure.

Depending on the age and capabilities of your existing Wi-Fi infrastructure your current Wi-Fi network may support some or all of the full range of RTLS options possible.

To determine the level of support required, it is important to consult your current provider to better understand the following:

• does the solution have the capability to support integral or third-party Wi-Fi device positioning?
• are there Bluetooth Low Energy (BLES) radios available on their current access points?
• can it support an integral wayfinding or asset tracking RTLS solution?
• does the current solution support any third party RTLS solutions?
• is the current distribution of access points of sufficient density to support asset tracking?
• what would be the cost to update the solution?
• what technologies would that update then support?

The answers to these questions will then inform your next steps.

Note: data capacity on your Wi-Fi network is generally not a consideration when deploying RTLS capabilities, as the technologies are quite lightweight in their data throughput requirements.   

If updates to your existing infrastructure are necessary and the refresh cycle is prohibitive, then look to see what other solutions, features or opportunities are available. For example, deployment of a passive RFID solution should not require use of the existing wireless infrastructure, but due to its nature this solution requires regular human intervention (use of handheld readers to register tags) and resource allocation to be an effective solution.

If it is not possible to deploy a full RTLS solution it may still be possible to deploy a small RTLS tracking solution covering certain critical area(s) that can be expanded in the future. Any infrastructure costs will be less than a blanket coverage and fewer tags will be required. This solution should include geo-fencing so that you are alerted when assets are removed from the RTLS tracking coverage area.

Do note that this deployment would then likely lock the vendor and technology to be used in any future expansion, so wider technical considerations should still play a part in vendor and solution choice.

Alternatively looking at a RTLS vendor rather than a Wi-Fi only vendor may be more cost effective if the RTLS vendor solution has the potential to integrate with your Wi-Fi solution in the future when budget allows refresh of the Wi-Fi infrastructure.

If the current Wi-Fi solution does not support an RTLS solution and budget and management approval from relevant departments allows a full deployment, then a full or partial Wi-Fi equipment refresh may be required. In this scenario the RTLS requirements would form part of the requirements of a wider refresh.

If the RTLS solution operates as part of your Wi-Fi deployment, attention should be paid to what data management components are required to manage the RTLS capabilities. This may require on-site virtual server resources, or the data management may be based in the cloud and included in the costs of deployment.

If local virtual resources are limited, this may affect the RTLS solution choice, or the costs of adding further local resources will need to be taken into account.