What You Should Know
- The Launch: Kontakt.io has introduced the “Patient Flow Agent,” an orchestration platform designed to reduce hospital length of stay (LOS) by blending real-time location data (RTLS) with electronic health records (EHR).
- The Thesis: The company argues that hospitals are suffering from a “flow orchestration problem,” not a bed shortage. By fixing decision-making context, they aim to eliminate the 22% of inpatient days deemed clinically unnecessary.
- The ROI: For an average 200-bed hospital, the technology promises a $7M annual impact—$4M in cost savings and $3M in new revenue—by uncovering “ghost capacity.”
The Context Gap: Why Decisions Go Wrong
Currently, the journey from admission to discharge involves hundreds of micro-decisions. A nurse might wait for a doctor to round; a transporter might wait for a clean room. These decisions are often made in silos, without visibility into the wider operational reality.
The Patient Flow Agent attempts to close this gap by blending two powerful data streams:
- Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS): Physical signals indicating where people and equipment actually are.
- EHR Data: Clinical signals indicating what the patient needs.
By merging these streams, the system creates “clinical context.” It doesn’t just tell you a patient is in Room 302; it tells you that the patient in Room 302 has been ready for discharge for two hours but is waiting on a wheelchair.
“Hospitals don’t have a bed problem; they have a patient flow orchestration problem,” said Philipp von Gilsa, CEO of Kontakt.io. “Patient Flow Agent turns fragmented data into coordinated real-time action using existing EHR interfaces and workflows, and surfaces time-critical interventions.”
From Dashboard to “Agent”
The naming of the product—Patient Flow Agent—is significant. It signals a shift from passive dashboards to active intervention.
Unlike traditional operational software that requires a human to interpret a graph, an “agentic” system initiates action. The platform is designed to identify care progression barriers—such as a delay in lab results or a bottleneck in environmental services—and automate the necessary nudges to resolve them.
The $7 Million Opportunity
For hospital CFOs, the math behind “flow orchestration” is compelling. Reducing LOS does not just improve patient satisfaction; it unlocks massive financial value.
Kontakt.io estimates that for a standard 200-bed hospital, reclaiming those unnecessary patient days translates to $4M in yearly cost savings and an additional $3M in annual revenue from backfilling those beds with new patients.
In an era where margins are razor-thin and staffing is a constant struggle, finding “ghost capacity” within existing walls is far cheaper than building a new wing. By proving that the beds already exist, Kontakt.io is betting that the hospital of the future won’t be bigger—it will just be faster.
