In pretty much any industry, knowing where your stuff is—be it personnel or inventory—is pretty essential streamlined, cost-conscious business operations. So it goes to follow that any technology that makes tracking easier and cheaper will be pretty popular.
This is where real-time locations services (RTLS) come in. The RTLS Market in North America is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27.08 percent from 2014-2019, as companies scoop up the technology, which can be used to find, track, manage, and identify the geographical position of a target on a real-time basis.
RTLS works across a range of technologies such as GPS, UWB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and RFID to track the location of objects. It’s this kind of breadth that has led sectors as varied as healthcare, military, supply chain management, retail, government, recreation, and the postal service to rely on RTLS for a huge range of activities.
Increased Use of RTLS in the Healthcare Domain
Out of every sector where RTLS has seen significant uptake, healthcare is experiencing some of the strongest growth. During the forecast period, the revenue from the healthcare vertical is expected to increase from US$73 million in 2014 to US$324 million in 2019.
RTLS as a Solution for Rising Healthcare Costs
Large chunks of the North American population suffer from both mental disorders and chronic diseases, and governments in the US and Canada have invested billions of dollars into the provision of better healthcare. RTLS is being used monitor assets and patients alike, in order to cut down on the major costs associated with healthcare.
Most healthcare organizations are currently using RTLS solutions for asset management— to locate equipment such as hospital beds, infusion pumps, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, and wheelchairs. Hospitals are also starting to rely on RFID tags, such as HF tags and UHF RFID tags to tag blood samples, tissue samples, and other critical fluids.
On top of being used to locate critical medical devices and manage inventory, the technology is also being used to track and identify patients, and monitor employees. This broad range of applications is well on its way to cementing RTLS as an essential service in the healthcare sector.
Emerging Technologies will Mark the RTLS Landscape in Coming Years
The overall RTLS market in North America is expected to continue on its upward trajectory through the forecast period, especially as new technologies infiltrate the market. The emergence of new comms protocols like UWB and Zigbee will contribute significantly to market growth, as both these technologies are expected to boom during the forecast period because of their advantage over active RFID and Wi-Fi-based RTLS solutions.
These emerging technologies provide high accuracy, precision, and reliability to SMEs. They are easy to deploy, secure and cost effective, which make them appealing solutions for stakeholders both within the healthcare sector and across other industries.
