Tagnos, developer of the leading clinical logistics automation solution for hospitals and clinics, announced today that it has received funding from Cisco Investments through the Cisco Webex Innovation Fund to help support Tagnos’ 18-month-old integration with the cloud-based Webex Teams app for continuous teamwork. In February, Tagnos, which already has hospital customers across the country, received series A funding of $5 million from Benhamou Global Ventures, Morpheus Ventures and Zebra Ventures, the investment arm of Zebra Technologies Corp.

“With the additions to our management team and the continuing support of Cisco Investments and our other investors, Tagnos is well-positioned to build on its initial success with the next generation of workflow optimization tools for hospitals and healthcare systems,” said NeerajBhavani, Founder and CEO of Tagnos. “The integration of Cisco Webex Teams into our software gives hospitals an essential tool for rapid identification of emergent problems with patient flow, staffing and other logistical issues so that staff members can quickly resolve them. At the same time, Tagnos can be a gateway for clinicians to access patient information as they collaborate on problem-solving in Webex Teams spaces.”

Tagnos is the first company to take Webex Teams HIPAA-compliant tools into hospitals. The first two hospitals to pilot the integrated solution are Covenant Speciality Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, and White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.

“We are pleased to invest in Tagnos through the Webex Innovation Fund,” said Rob Salvagno, vice president, Corporate Development at Cisco. “Tagnos has displayed technical ingenuity, combined with a deep understanding of what makes healthcare tick.”

For example, Tagnos has used Webex Teams to help reduce hospital wait times. When patients register in a hospital that uses Tagnos, they receive radio identification tags like those used to track equipment in real-time location systems (RTLS). After a patient has waited in an area for a specified period of time, a notification is automatically sent to team members about an “exception” to normal policy. Webex Teams creates a “space,” similar to a chat room but within the patient context, in which the staff can communicate about how to solve the issue, working from any device they are using. Clinicians can also click on one of five to seven buttons to indicate that they are unavailable or to send some other brief response.

Tagnos’ software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform is designed to orchestrate hospital workflows in ways that reduce wait times, enhance the patient experience, boost staff efficiency and optimize the utilization of supplies and equipment. The company’s analytics engine can ingest data from any RTLS solution that tracks the locations of patients, staff members and physical assets. In addition, Tagnos incorporates data from electronic health records (EHRs), computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems, laboratory and radiology information systems, bed management systems and hospital admission-discharge-transfer (ADT) systems. The solution analyzes all of this contextual data to improve patient flow and to prevent bottlenecks by alerting staff about anticipated problems. The insights generated by the platform are also used to reengineer workflows so that care teams can further streamline care delivery.

Tagnos gives hospital administrators visibility into workflow patterns, enabling them to optimize staff utilization and reduce cycle time. This decreased cycle time results in shorter patient wait times and increased throughput. Especially in operating rooms and emergency departments, better throughput can translate into additional revenue and ROI. Moreover, the Tagnos solution advances patient satisfaction by keeping patients and their loved ones informed about the status of their care at every step.