Task and Workflow Management System for Healthcare and other Applications

A task management system uses patient tags (e.g., wireless RFID, Infrared tracking, GPS etc.) for patient location tracking, together with an integrated workflow system to automatically, track patient location how long they have been there and how many patients are at the same location (e.g., waiting room) and manages waiting time and an overall waiting queue, supporting automated adjustment of healthcare staffing, patient flows, and team coordination. A task management system for use in providing healthcare to a patient includes a patient tracking processor and a workflow processor. The patient tracking processor automatically acquires data derived by wireless communication from patient attached tag devices for use in identifying a location of multiple patients in a healthcare enterprise and identifying a first number of patients at a particular location and a second number of patients awaiting receiving a particular type of treatment. The workflow processor automatically initiates a patient load balancing activity to improve a match between a healthcare resource and a patient load by communicating a message to update a healthcare worker task schedule with a task in response to a determination the identified first or second number of patients exceeds a predetermined threshold number.