Hospital Asset Tracking in India: Solving a ₹1.8 Crore Problem

Hans India

a day ago

A single Indian hospital can lose over ₹1.8 crore a year—not from surgeries gone wrong or billing disputes, but simply from patients getting lost and assets vanishing into storerooms. Nurses—India's most overworked frontline caregivers—can lose up to 60 minutes per shift just searching for equipment. These aren't isolated issues. And most hospitals have no system in place to fix them.
The Hidden Costs Draining Indian Hospitals
Rising costs in healthcare aren't always about advanced machinery or doctor salaries. Many of India's private hospitals are silently losing lakhs every year because of invisible inefficiencies.
Nurses waste up to 60 minutes per shift searching for equipment.
Mobile medical devices like ECGs and oxygen cylinders go missing due to lack of tracking systems.
Patients miss appointments after getting lost in multi-building campuses.
Over-ordering of equipment happens due to poor visibility into what already exists.
These aren't one-off problems—they are systemic leaks in the engine.
How Much Time Do Nurses Lose Searching for Equipment?
A report in Nursing Times shows that nurses lose 30–60 minutes per shift just finding medical equipment.
For a 300-bed facility with 100 nurses, that adds up to over 50,000 hours of wasted skilled time each year.
At a conservative ₹200/hour, that's ₹1 crore in annual productivity lost—not on patient care, but on chasing items like IV pumps or monitors.
Now imagine recovering even 80% of that time through a real-time asset tracking system for hospitals. That's more healing, less hunting.
Why Hospitals Keep Losing Expensive Equipment
According to studies in both U.S. and Indian hospitals, 10–20% of mobile assets are lost or stolen over their lifecycle. In India, this often includes:
Oxygen cylinders
ECG machines
Stretchers
Patient monitors
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that in Kerala alone, medical equipment worth ₹7.28 crore was left unused due to mismanagement or lack of trained staff.
And because hospitals can't track these assets, they over-order backup stock—leading to utilisation rates as low as 50%, compared to an industry ideal of 75–80%.
This is a classic case of capital sitting idle while the system keeps spending.
What is RTLS? Why Smart Hospitals in India Are Adopting It
Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) are indoor navigation and positioning systems that allow hospitals to:
Track the location of assets and staff
Guide patients through large campuses
Reduce appointment no-shows
Improve response time in emergencies
However, most RTLS solutions require Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons, or expensive infrastructure—which makes them impractical for many Indian hospitals.
Solution- A Hardware-Free RTLS System
As hospitals search for indoor navigation systems that work without Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, or explore RTLS solutions tailored for Indian settings, one trend stands out: the shift toward hardware-free, softwar++++e-driven platforms.
One such system gaining traction is Mapsted, which operates without external beacons or routers. Instead, it uses smartphone sensors and passive tags—making it more compatible with India's dense, multilingual, and often infrastructure-constrained hospital environments.
Mapsted's RTLS works directly through smartphones and passive tags—making it:
Cheaper to deploy
Easier to maintain
More suited to India's dense OPDs and multilingual patient base
Hospitals using Mapsted's location-based platform have seen:
Increased patient throughput
Fewer missed appointments
Reduction in lost equipment
Over 2,000 staff hours saved annually
Smart Navigation Is Not a Fancy Add-On—It's Infrastructure
India's healthcare system is under pressure: rising medical costs, growing patient volumes, and a shrinking skilled workforce.
To solve these challenges, hospitals must stop thinking of smart navigation and hospital asset tracking as 'nice to have' technologies.
They are foundational tools for:
Cutting operational losses
Improving staff productivity
Making better use of every rupee invested
By choosing a solution like Mapsted's hardware-free RTLS system, hospitals don't just save money—they transform how healthcare works.