Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON) today announced the launch of its Real-Time Health Monitoring System (RTHMS), a smart edge-to-cloud communication platform for remote and real-time monitoring of patients that acts as a bridge between caregiver and patient. The offering integrates hardware and software to improve care delivery, enhance healthcare worker productivity, and enable process efficiency. By digitizing and automating critical tasks, RTHMS can reduce hospital administrative tasks by 35%.

Despite advances in technology, healthcare remains burdened by heavy paperwork and manual processes. Medical personnel are overloaded with repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as capturing and registering patients’ vital signs. This leads to inefficiencies, loss of productivity, exposure to infections, and increased risk of incidents.

RTHMS uses advanced sensing technology to capture the vital parameters of patients in real-time and transmits them to a comprehensive health analytics dashboard. This can be accessed by authorized personnel over the Internet or though Honeywell’s care communication platform, a mobile application for caregivers. This edge-to-cloud system also generates alerts in real-time should there be any deviation in patients’ vital signs against acceptable or normal ranges.

“The pandemic highlighted the importance of improving efficiencies in healthcare delivery. At Honeywell Technology Solutions (HTS), the pandemic made us pivot towards the development of healthcare technologies that will shape the future of healthcare delivery for the betterment of society,” said Samuel Pratap, President, Honeywell Technology Solutions, the global engineering and technology development arm of Honeywell, which has operations in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurugram and Madurai.

Developed by HTS engineers in India, RTHMS includes hardware and software. The hardware comprises a wrist band that monitors SPO2 and a disposable, wearable biosensor patch with a QR code placed on the patient’s chest, which records other vitals such as ECG, respiratory rate, heart rate, skin temperature and posture of the patient. The caregiver can scan the QR code and monitor patients in real-time or remotely on a dashboard placed at the nursing station.

“RTHMS will improve quality and timeliness of care by alerting healthcare staff in real time as needed, while improving the efficiency of hospitals by eliminating multiple trips to patient beds to collect vitals. Further, wireless monitoring allows patients to have more mobility in the room, while remaining connected to their caregivers,” said Ajeya Motaganahalli, CTO, Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions, India.

The healthcare industry is continuously evolving to keep up with increasing regulatory pressures, while maintaining an environment where patients and staff feel safe. Healthcare providers often struggle with developing the right approach to stay ahead of these challenges.

Nandakumar K, General Manager, Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions, India, said, “A patient-centric approach can be augmented through technology-led productivity and mobility solutions. Honeywell is creating a new category of healthcare solutions that streamlines error-prone tasks and improves organizational agility, communication, and data collection. Our solutions are tailored to ensure hospitals and caregivers can deliver superior customer experience and care.”

As the healthcare industry deepens its focus on customer experience, compliance, and safety of patients and staff, healthcare organizations need technologies that can help streamline processes and save time and costs.

“We are offering RTHMS with a software-as-a-service model, which reduces the need for hospitals to invest in expensive equipment for vital tracking. From a patient’s first visit to diagnosis and returning home from care, Honeywell has the technologies to help healthcare providers shape the future of their organizations,” Nandakumar added.

RTHMS is the latest among Honeywell’s offerings for the healthcare and life sciences industry in India. While the company established an N95 respirator manufacturing facility in Pune in 2020, earlier this year, Honeywell launched BluTag 360, a shipment condition monitoring solution that has wide applications in the pharmaceutical industry.