by Brianna Crandall — August 8, 2018 — With the goal of unlocking the true value of connected things in the built environment, ThoughtWire, a provider of operations performance management solutions, recently announced the availability of five new applications, spanning smart buildings and smart hospitals, for the real-time orchestration of people, systems and things. ThoughtWire’s new applications expand upon its Internet of Things (IoT) platform capabilities to provide vertical-specific solutions aimed at helping businesses gain greater visibility and more automated management of their operations.
The IoT platforms market is projected to surpass $22 billion in annual spending by 2023 (IoT Platforms Market Report 2018-2023, published by IoT Analytics, June 2018). Despite significant investment in IoT platforms, the return on investment (ROI) for many organizations has been elusive, particularly because IoT platforms require significant development costs to address their business potential, points out ThoughtWire.
Indeed, a recent 451 report found that a significant 41 percent of companies said that the IoT’s lack of perceived ROI was a barrier to adoption. Meanwhile, many organizations grapple with complex workflows, siloed data sources, lack of relevant data, absence of predictive analytics, and a fundamental lack of a people-centric approach. ThoughtWire’s application suites are aimed at unlocking the true value of connected things in built environments, yielding cost savings, an increase in asset value, and an improved experience for a built environment.
Michael Monteith, CEO of ThoughtWire, stated:
ThoughtWire’s goal is to establish itself as a leader in the emerging market segment of operations performance management (OPM). Building owners and health-care providers are looking for proven solutions to achieve a rapid return on their IoT investments, and we’re extending beyond the typical developer-centric approach of most IoT providers to help tap into the true potential of intelligent operations for built environments. With our OPM application suites, building owners now have the ability to experience real process change and unlock better outcomes for their patients and tenants, which can dramatically impact — and even save — the lives of the people they are serving.
With these vertical-specific applications, building owners and hospitals have more tailored solutions to:
- Bring together data that’s captured by a variety of systems and connected devices for context-rich orchestration that helps optimize operations and improve workflows;
- Gain real-time and context-aware insights into how a built environment such as a hospital or building is operating, rapidly respond to a patient and tenant’s experience, and receive recommendations on how to improve operations;
- Make informed decisions and take immediate action via mobile-ready applications; and
- Sync data from IoT devices and sensors to ensure a variety of different systems are able to “talk to” and supply data to ThoughtWire’s applications through pre-built connectors, which are integrated into each app.
Smart Building Suite for OPM
ThoughtWire’s Smart Building Suite for OPM has proven to increase asset value by raising rental value; reduce operating expenditures by enabling remote monitoring of buildings and automating corrective actions of faults; and lower energy costs by automating efficiency workflows. The suite helps corporate and commercial real estate owners empower building and facilities managers (FMs) to collect data, determine which data points are most useful, and give employees as well as tenants access to context-rich applications. The suite consists of PrecisionHub for building and facility managers and the @WorkApp for tenants.
ThoughtWire’s PrecisionHub gives managers visibility into end-to-end operations such as energy usage and management, context-rich fault detection, and automated adjustment of building controls. This essentially entails building a “digital twin” — a digital model of a building that brings together all disparate data into one comprehensive model telling managers about the health of a building and the complex workflows within it. PrecisionHub helps managers remotely monitor alarms and events; quickly onboard new tenants; understand data more quickly and in context; connect various systems with sensors and third-party applications; and more.
With ThoughtWire’s @WorkApp, tenants can easily adjust environmental or comfort controls through a mobile app. This provides them with greater control over their building experience including community engagement features, building access controls from their smart phones, and wayfinding.
Smart building managers can bring tenants in more quickly and reduce the likelihood that they’ll move elsewhere by improving their overall experience, points out ThoughtWire. They can also reduce overall operating costs, such as improved energy efficiency with intelligent monitoring tools, and can increase asset value since smart buildings have a higher market value. ThoughtWire already has many customers in the smart buildings space, including Oxford Properties. ThoughtWire’s applications are currently being used at a 900,000-square-foot building in Toronto, Canada, where it has been projected to yield a 344 percent internal rate of return (IRR) over a five-year period.
Smart Hospital Suite for OPM
ThoughtWire’s Smart Hospital Suite for OPM puts the power of managing operations in the hands of the people who are in the best position to positively impact process change, helping hospital staff provide a better patient experience and better health outcomes. With this people-centric approach to managing IoT-enhanced environments, smart hospital staff members can easily see how their facility operations are faring inside and out. They can also see how the state of their facility is impacting the patient experience. Hospital teams can more easily bring in new patients, improve the time it takes to care for patients as well as the management of that care, and make changes as needed along the way. Smart hospitals can also save on overall operational costs. For example, one hospital was reportedly able to realize an annual ROI of 900 percent, saving $2.7 million per year, through its work with ThoughtWire.
Alison Fox-Robichaud, BSc, MSc, MD, FRCPC, Department of Critical Care, Hamilton Health Sciences, pointed out:
Failure to recognize patient deterioration is a significant issue for acute care hospitals. The use of early warning scores that track abnormal vital signs is a strategy to recognize the unwell patient. In collaboration with ThoughtWire, our hospital has harnessed the power of our electronic health record to alert healthcare professionals in a timely manner. This has led to reduced cardiac arrests and unplanned intensive care unit admissions.
The Smart Hospital Suite consists of three applications: EarlyWarning, SynchronizedOps, and RapidResponse.
ThoughtWire’s EarlyWarning application can make predictions based on algorithm scores and automate alerts to help teams mobilize and act more quickly and effectively. This application helps hospital staff anticipate which patients may be at risk for code blue — a hospital code used to indicate a patient requires immediate resuscitation — as well as other alerts for patients with conditions that may be deteriorating. The app has been proven to reduce code blues by up to 90 percent by orchestrating the people and processes required to mobilize an effective code response before it happens. Providers can quickly record vital signs, optimize their care delivery process by streamlining workflows, and enjoy real-time mobile-enabled communications to better collaborate across teams.
ThoughtWire’s SynchronizedOps application helps providers reduce patient wait times by reducing the time it takes to move patients to and from different areas of the hospital. Environmental services, and the process to get rooms ready for patients, are better coordinated with overall patient flow to increase bed utilization and improve overall satisfaction. ThoughtWire recently worked with a smart hospital that was facing challenges with moving patients expeditiously and using all available emergency room beds. Working with ThoughtWire, the hospital reportedly saw improvements that generated an annual $2.7 million in savings, yielding 900 percent in the annual return on investment.
ThoughtWire’s RapidResponse application quite literally ensures the information doctors and nurses need is at their fingertips to enable faster response times to urgent situations and ensure they’re able to effectively address patients’ needs to improve overall satisfaction. With clear visibility into valuable information, situated in the proper context and available across all devices, clinicians can make timely and informed decisions about patient care — reducing the risk of errors, the likelihood of missing key information and the chances of costly code events. Response time is critical in not only ensuring patient care, but also safety. The RapidResponse application can notify all staff and automate critical workflows if there are wandering patients, in the event that an infant is abducted, and if any other security incidents arise. With optimized call routing, clinicians and staff won’t get overwhelmed by code calls and alarms — they receive only the most pertinent information needed and can easily accept and reject calls from a mobile device.
For more information about the Smart Building Suite or Smart Hospital Suite or to set up a demo, visit the ThoughtWire website.
