HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT TRACKING WITH EYE BEACON MESH

INTRO

Mobile medical equipment plays a vital role in day-to-day hospital operations. From beds and wheelchairs to diagnostic and life-support devices, having the right equipment in the right place at the right time is critical for patient care and staff efficiency. As hospital environments become more dynamic and equipment more mobile, the ability to track assets accurately across departments is no longer a convenience — it’s a necessity.

CHALLENGE

Hospitals are highly dynamic environments where equipment availability can directly affect patient outcomes. Yet, managing thousands of mobile medical assets — from wheelchairs to infusion pumps — remains a significant operational challenge. Studies reveal that healthcare staff spend a disproportionate amount of time simply searching for equipment. More than one-third of nurses spend at least one hour per shift looking for devices and tools they need for patient care.

Another ongoing problem is that equipment isn’t used enough or is unnecessarily duplicated. Due to misplaced or poorly tracked assets, hospitals often over-purchase medical equipment by 10–20% to ensure device availability at all times. This inefficiency is closely linked to the lack of real-time visibility into asset locations. As a result, companies spend more than they need to, use resources poorly, and end up with too much unused equipment in different departments.

Furthermore, asset loss and theft contribute significantly to operational strain. 10–20% of mobile assets are lost or stolen during their lifecycle, often due to poor tracking or manual asset management methods. When combined with the administrative burden of manual tracking systems — often based on spreadsheets or barcode scanning — hospitals experience delayed treatments, non-compliance with maintenance schedules, and inflated replacement costs.

Ultimately, these challenges lead to reduced staff productivity, higher operational costs, and, in some cases, delayed patient care. Hospitals need an automated and scalable solution that provides reliable visibility of every asset across multiple buildings and departments — ensuring critical equipment is available when and where it is needed most.

However, many existing indoor asset tracking solutions are not designed with large hospital environments in mind. Most rely on a simple setup: a Beacon or Sensor attached to an asset and a gateway collecting the data. While this approach works well for small or straightforward deployments, it quickly reaches its limits as scale and complexity increase.

As the number of tracked assets grows, traditional Bluetooth® based systems require a high number of gateways to maintain coverage across multiple floors and buildings. This increases installation effort, infrastructure costs, and ongoing maintenance. In addition, these systems depend on fixed communication paths, meaning that when coverage gaps occur, asset visibility can be lost until the issue is manually resolved.

SOLUTION

There are numerous solutions offering asset tracking. However, in large-scale environments such as hospitals, many of them become expensive to deploy and difficult to maintain when hundreds or thousands of assets must be tracked across multiple floors or buildings. To address these challenges, Teltonika offers an EYE Beacon Mesh tag — a solution based on Wirepas Mesh technology, designed for scalable, high-density deployments, where devices can automatically route information through other nearby devices if one stops working. This wireless, infrastructure-light network enables hospitals to accurately track the location and movement of thousands of medical devices across departments, floors, or even entire campuses.

How it works - The tracking system consists of three types of Mesh devices, all operating as part of the same Mesh network: EYE Beacon Mesh tags, anchors, and gateways. Each movable asset, such as a ventilator, infusion pump, wheelchair, or hospital bed, is equipped with a compact EYE Beacon Mesh tag. Each tag broadcasts a unique ID that is linked to a specific item in the hospital’s asset system, allowing staff to instantly identify what type of equipment it is — whether it’s a bed, a wheelchair, or a specific medical device. EYE Mesh tags on assets can be assigned to specific anchors in hospital rooms or zones, and when movement is detected, the system checks whether the relocation was expected. If an asset leaves its designated area without following approved workflows, staff are notified immediately. This ensures accountability, helps prevent theft or hoarding, and reduces the risk of equipment being misplaced or lost.

EYE Beacon Mesh tags automatically communicate with nearby anchors — fixed-position devices installed in every room. Anchors provide a reference point for location tracking, enabling the system to determine the exact position of each asset within the building. They are self-healing — if one device fails, data is automatically rerouted through another available anchor, ensuring continuous operation without interruption.

Gateways are installed on every floor and are also part of the mesh network. These devices collect data from the anchors and transmit it to the server.

The entire system provides real-time visibility of all tagged equipment, allowing hospital staff to instantly locate the nearest available device via software or a mobile interface

This smart infrastructure enables hospitals to reduce equipment search times, avoid over-purchasing, and improve overall asset utilisation — all while maintaining a flexible, scalable solution that can grow with the facility’s needs.

TOPOLOGY

BENEFITS

• Scales efficiently across large facilities - designed for high-density deployments, the Mesh supports thousands of assets across multiple floors and buildings without excessive infrastructure.

  
  

• Reduces deployment and maintenance complexity at scale -with wireless tags and anchors and a limited number of gateways per floor, the system reduces cabling requirements and simplifies large-scale hospital deployments.

  
  

• Avoids tracking blind spots - self-healing communication allows data to be rerouted through nearby devices, ensuring continued asset visibility even if individual anchors stop working.

  
  

• Keeps equipment where it is supposed to be - assigned zones and movement tracking help ensure devices stay in the right departments and follow established hospital workflows.

  
  

WHY TELTONIKA?

Hospitals require accurate visibility of critical equipment without adding complexity to everyday workflows. Teltonika offers a dependable asset tracking solution built around EYE Beacon Mesh technology. Powered by Wirepas Mesh connectivity, it enables hospitals to locate and monitor medical equipment across wards, storage areas, and technical rooms in real time.

Designed for dense indoor environments, the solution scales easily as equipment inventories grow. With straightforward deployment and smooth integration into existing hospital infrastructure, Teltonika helps healthcare providers reduce search time, prevent equipment misplacement, and ensure essential devices are available when needed. Supported by long-term IoT expertise, Teltonika delivers reliable technology that strengthens operational efficiency and supports informed decision-making in healthcare facilities.