---
title: "Hospital Equipment Tracking & Monitoring with MQTT | ConnectMQ"
description: "Stream location and status of infusion pumps, beds and medication fridges from RTLS gateways and sensors to your systems over MQTT. Start for free, no card."
url: "https://connectmq.com/use-cases/medical-equipment-tracking/"
language: "en"
---

Use case

# Find every pump, bed and fridge, live

RTLS gateways, smart beds, infusion pump servers and fridge probes already produce the data. ConnectMQ brings it onto one MQTT broker, so your asset tracking app, CMMS and facilities dashboards all work from the same live picture.

[Try it free](https://app.connectmq.com/signup) [See pricing](https://connectmq.com/pricing/)

No card required

Used in

-   [Healthcare](https://connectmq.com/industries/healthcare/)

Example message

PUBLISH hospital/campus-a/pump/ip-0412/location

```
{"ward":"4E","room":"412","zone":"corridor-b","state":"available","gw":"gw-4e-07","ts":"2026-10-22T08:15:03Z"}
```

QoS 1 · TLS 8883 · PUBACK

The problem

## Equipment that is “somewhere on the ward”

Nurses lose time hunting for infusion pumps and wheelchairs, biomedical engineering cannot find the devices due for preventive maintenance, and a medication fridge that drifted out of range overnight is noticed at the morning round. The data exists — in RTLS, device vendor and BMS silos that do not talk to each other.

## How it works

1.  1
    
    ### Tags and sensors report
    
    BLE or UWB tags on pumps, beds and wheelchairs are picked up by RTLS gateways; fridges and freezers carry temperature probes; smart beds and pump servers expose status.
    
2.  2
    
    ### Gateways publish
    
    Each gateway or integration publishes location and status changes per site, asset type and asset ID, with the last known state retained.
    
3.  3
    
    ### Rules watch the limits
    
    Threshold rules raise an alert when a fridge leaves its range or a gateway goes silent; the live dashboard shows equipment by ward and floor.
    
4.  4
    
    ### Teams act on it
    
    Your asset tracking app shows where the nearest free pump is, the CMMS receives usage and location for PM planning, facilities follows up on fridge alerts.
    

ConnectMQ

## What it needs from the broker

### Last known state, at once

Retained messages give every new subscriber the current location and status of each asset immediately, without waiting for the next tag beacon.

### One stream, many systems

Publish/subscribe lets the tracking app, CMMS, BMS and your data platform consume the same messages independently — no point-to-point links per vendor.

### Separate access per system

Each RTLS gateway and integration has its own credentials, and per-topic ACLs let it publish only to its own topics, while the CMMS can read but not write.

### Alerts built in

Threshold rules and notifications cover fridge ranges and battery levels, and Last Will flags a gateway that drops off the network.

## What you get

-   Less time spent searching for equipment on the wards
-   Fridge temperature excursions noticed when they start, not at the next round
-   Usage and location data feeding preventive maintenance planning
-   One integration point instead of one link per vendor system

Example topics

```
hospital/campus-a/pump/ip-0412/location
hospital/campus-a/pump/ip-0412/status    (retained)
hospital/campus-a/fridge/pharm-3b/temp
hospital/campus-a/rtls/gw-4e-07/status   (retained)
```

## Industries that run this use case

 [![](https://connectmq.com/images/industries/hero/healthcare.webp) Healthcare](https://connectmq.com/industries/healthcare/)

## Related solutions

[

### Connected Products & Smart Hardware

Smart devices you ship to your own customers

Learn more](https://connectmq.com/connected-products/)[

### Smart City

Streetlights, parking, air and waste sensors

Learn more](https://connectmq.com/smart-city/)

## Frequently asked questions

How do I connect RTLS gateways to MQTT?

Many BLE and UWB gateways and location engines can publish MQTT natively — point them at your ConnectMQ endpoint with TLS and their own credentials. Where a system only offers a REST API, a small bridge service polls it and publishes the changes to MQTT.

Can MQTT be used to monitor medication and vaccine fridge temperatures?

Yes, as the data transport. Probes or gateways publish readings, threshold rules alert when a fridge leaves its range, and your monitoring or quality system keeps the records. Validation of the overall monitoring system stays with your organisation.

Can equipment data feed our CMMS and BMS at the same time?

Yes. With MQTT every system subscribes to the topics it needs: the CMMS takes usage hours and locations, the BMS takes fridge and room data, and your tracking app takes everything — all from the same messages.

## Build it on ConnectMQ

Start on the Free plan — no card required — connect your first devices today and upgrade when you go live.

[Get started](https://app.connectmq.com/signup) [See pricing](https://connectmq.com/pricing/)

## More use cases

-   [Predictive Maintenance](https://connectmq.com/use-cases/predictive-maintenance/)
-   [Asset Performance Tracking](https://connectmq.com/use-cases/asset-performance-tracking/)
-   [Industrial Agentic AI Operations](https://connectmq.com/use-cases/industrial-agentic-ai/)
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## Articles

[All articles](https://connectmq.com/blog/)

Managed MQTT Cloud

### [How to Choose an IoT MQTT Broker: 12 Criteria and the Questions to Ask Your Vendor](https://connectmq.com/blog/how-to-choose-an-iot-mqtt-broker/)

A practical 12-point checklist for choosing an IoT MQTT broker, a table of questions to ask every vendor, and a five-minute hands-on test you can run against broker.connectmq.com.

September 21, 20269 min read

MQTT Fundamentals

### [MQTT QoS Levels Explained: QoS 0, 1 and 2 with Packet Flows and Examples](https://connectmq.com/blog/mqtt-qos-levels-explained/)

A practical guide to MQTT QoS: how QoS 0, 1 and 2 work on the wire, why the delivered QoS can be lower than you asked for, how sessions queue messages and which level to choose for each use case.

August 20, 20269 min read

MQTT Security

### [MQTT Security Best Practices: A 12-Point Checklist for IoT Teams](https://connectmq.com/blog/mqtt-security-best-practices/)

A hands-on MQTT security checklist covering TLS, credentials, client IDs, topic design, payload validation, rate limits and certificate checks, plus how ConnectMQ handles each point.

September 28, 202611 min read
