From transport request to clean bed: measuring each step

Published on November 7, 2026 · 6 min read

A simple request that passes through many people

Someone needs to take a patient to an exam. The request leaves nursing, reaches a porter, the patient is taken, the exam happens, the patient comes back and, later, the bed or room has to be cleaned for the next one. Each step looks short. What tends to weigh is the gap between them, because nobody can see the gap.

Delays in transport affect exams, surgeries, discharges, transfers and bed release. That is why it is worth following one request from start to finish and asking, at each handoff, who knew what and from what time.

The path of a request in Flow

This is the route of a transport to an exam in SigaME Flow, with RTLS contracted. Each step is recorded with a timestamp.

1. The request. Nursing picks the department favorite and sends it in two taps.
2. The choice. Flow sees who is free and who is closest, using the RTLS of the eCom devices, and offers the trip to the first in the fair queue.
3. The alert. The porter's eCom rings and vibrates, and the screen shows where from and where to.
4. The acceptance. The porter accepts with one button. Whoever asked sees that the trip was accepted, along with the estimated arrival.
5. The route. RTLS follows the movement on the map, and the coordinator sees everything in real time.
6. The arrival. With the eCom on site, the arrival is marked automatically.
7. The completion. The porter completes the task. Everything is recorded with a timestamp, and the times go into the reports.

Where time tends to be lost

Following the same request, four handoffs deserve attention. In each one, what the hospital usually has is a phone call or someone's memory.

1. From request to acceptance. Without a record, whoever asked does not know if anyone heard. In Flow, the task is offered to whoever is available, and the requester sees the acceptance and the estimated arrival, for example “arrives in about 5 min”, without calling.
2. From acceptance to arrival. With RTLS, the coordinator follows the movement on the map and the arrival on site is marked automatically.
3. From patient departure to cleaning. The patient's discharge automatically generates the terminal cleaning of the bed. When the room becomes free, the cleaning task is created without anyone having to remember to ask.
4. From cleaning to the next admission. With RTLS, the start and end of cleaning are marked by the worker's presence, and room turnaround is measured automatically.

What Flow shows

The coordinator board lists each task with its status, department, assignee, SLA and deadline. Requests with no free assignee are flagged, and tasks with the SLA at risk come first. There is also a TV mode and reports in CSV and PDF.

Assignment considers proximity (with RTLS), workload and queue order, like a taxi line. The coordinator can assign or reassign the task manually. At the wall call points, the badge and a button held for 5 seconds create the task with the right location already filled in.

What Journey adds

Flow looks at the task. Journey looks at the patient: the step they are in, how long they have been there and where the wait goes past the target. Tracking covers steps such as emergency care, triage, exams, diagnostic imaging, the operating room and recovery, and each step has a time target with an alert when it is exceeded.

In the room view, each room appears as occupied, being cleaned, awaiting cleaning or free. The room turnaround report joins patient departure, cleaning, idle time and the next patient's entry, and it uses the turnaround measured by Flow. The reports of times per step and the bottleneck view serve continuous improvement.

The patient is identified only by the medical record number. Name, tax ID and date of birth do not enter the system, and every query of the journey is logged. The companion can see the current step and the typical wait on a page with no login, through a QR code.

What this does not promise

Journey runs on top of RTLS, which must be contracted. Without it, arrival on site in Flow is not marked automatically either, and step-by-step tracking does not exist.

The modules measure times and show where the wait appears. They do not explain on their own why it happened, and they do not decide what to change. They also do not replace surgical systems or clinical protocols: Flow coordinates support activities.

The screens on the site use data from a demonstration hospital and fictitious medical records. Each hospital's own times only appear once the system is in use.

When it fits and where to start

It fits when the hospital feels the flow stalling but does not know at which step. A few questions help choose the starting point:

1. Does transport depend on phone calls? Then Flow, with the two-tap request and the recorded acceptance, is the first step.
2. Does cleaning of beds and rooms depend on someone remembering? The automatic tasks triggered by discharge and the measurement by presence address that handoff.
3. Does management not know how long patients wait at each step? That is the case for Journey, with RTLS already contracted or contracted together.