April 20th, 2020, Yongin Severance Hospital in South Korea announced that they are implementing  ‘Location-based Infection Tracking Solution’ in the hospital.

Patients wear a Bluetooth armband and roam the hospital. Infectious Disease Control Center and the ward desks receive the location data transmitted from the armband then can display and analyze the paths of the patients during a specific time range and date.

To enable this solution, dense network infrastructure and IndoorPlus+, an RTLS (Real-Time Location System) IoT solution by PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY were implemented in order to track patients’ location and path data

The hospital performed a simulation test on April 14th, 2020. A patient wearing an armband was traced via Bluetooth network and an accurate path and the list of people in contact with this patient was successfully generated by the RTLS system

“This Location-based Infection Tracking Solution provides data on whether the infected patient was in contact with other patients and medical staff with visualization and minimize the spread of the virus by reacting fast “, According to Dr. Sungwon Kim at Yongin Severance Digital Medical Center.

Up until now, hospitals had to rely mainly on the patient’s verbal evidence and CCTV records in the hospital to match the credibility of the verbal evidence. Such a method was limiting the capacity to trace effectively the virus.

With the successful simulation test results, Yongin Severance Hospital now plans on refining the solution and apply it in the whole hospital to trace COVID-19 patients’ path and contact persons.