American Time Blog

When every second matters, each person in your clinic or hospital needs to be on the same time. Whether tracking surgery time, coordinating patient care, keeping appointments on time or recording tasks, precise time throughout a building or campus is essential.

We know there are a lot of factors when it comes to choosing the right clocks or clock technology for your building. That’s why we created our
Clock School On-Demand Webinar Series.

As far as we know, time travel hasn't been invented yet, so when hospital records show a patient leaving one area at a certain time and arriving at their destination two minutes earlier, something isn't right.

At the Essentia Healthcare Campus in Duluth, Minnesota, this discrepancy became problematic when billing the patient’s insurance company, who didn't buy the proposition that someone could be in two places at once, thus refused to pay the bills when that's what the records showed.

This is a story of how changing one aspect of hospital operations saved a facility thousands of dollars, illustrating just how important it is that all the clocks in your facility stay in sync.

Anyone who's ever visited an ice cream shop, craft beer taproom, or the cereal aisle of a grocery store knows choices can be hard. Cheerios or Captain Crunch? Weird... somehow they both ended up my cart. But sometimes in business, you have to make just one choice and when making big decisions is part of your job, the stakes only rise.

If you're tasked with selecting a synchronized clock system for your facility, there are many options to choose from. If you don’t know much about synchronized time, your mission might seem easy at first, you just buy clocks and hang them on the walls right? But just like buying an ice cream cone or picking out your favorite cereal brand, there are a variety of options to choose from. We are, after all, talking about installing an entire network of electronic devices.

As you delve deeper into this mission, you might require some guidance. Here, we'll help you determine which type of clock is best for you, depending on your industry and the type of facility you're responsible for keeping on time.

Imagine you had the chance to go the next five years without a dentist appointment, your annual performance review, or a trip to the DMV. A lot of people would jump at that opportunity.

It’s not often that you can wipe annoying obligations off your calendar in one fell swoop, but once in a while, you’re faced with the opportunity to clear your schedule and make more time for the things you really want to do.

For instance, you probably have better things to do than to change out the batteries in the potentially hundreds of wall clocks in your facility, but one forward-looking decision can pay long-term dividends. Making sure each battery-powered clock in your facility is outfitted with a clock battery pack will take an item off your perpetual to-do list while ensuring your building stays on schedule for years to come.

Here's what you need to know about clock battery packs.

To grill with gas or charcoal. To drive an electric car or opt for internal combustion. To eat oatmeal or Pop-Tarts for breakfast. When it comes to selecting an energy source for our daily needs, we have more options now than ever.

These decisions extend to the basic operations of any large facility, including its clocks. When you're selecting clocks for your school, factory, or medical facility, you have two options for a power source: electric or battery-operated.

The right choice often depends on the resources at your disposal and how you plan to deploy your clocks. Here are the pros and cons of both battery and electric clocks.

Most of us take certain types of technology for granted — until it's not working for us. We have all probably lost phone service while inside the walls of a warehouse or at the bottom of a parking garage. This can be an annoying inconvenience, but how often has it prevented you from making a deadline or resulted in a loss of revenue?

At a quick glance, you may not notice the characteristics of the clock in your classroom, office, or facility. Would you be able to tell if the clock next to your desk is a wired or wireless system? You probably have no idea and quite honestly why would you if that clock is doing a great job with keeping accurate time. The terminology isn’t something you pay attention to, but that’s what we’re here for. In this video, we explain the terminology you should know for wired and wireless clocks, making your decision to purchase a system or repair a system that much better informed.