Patent ID: 8032401

Claim:
A system to calculate a mode of procurement of at least one asset, the system comprising: at least one tracking element operable to generate a signal representative of a location of the at least one asset; and a controller in communication with the at least one tracking element, the controller including a processor in communication with a memory, the processor operable to execute a plurality of program instructions stored in the memory, the plurality of program instructions representative of the acts of: measuring a utilization of the at least one asset having a unique identifier over at least one time interval; calculating a projected need of the at least one asset over a predetermined future time interval based upon the measured utilization of the at least one asset over the at least one time interval; calculating a mode of procurement of the at least one asset based upon the projected need of the at least one asset using a recurrent neural network algorithm which comprises calculating automatically adjustable empirical weights using back-propagation, wherein back-propagation comprises using a predetermined error of historical input values to produce a historical outcome; adopting the automatically adjustable empirical weights into the recurrent neural algorithm; and displaying the mode of procurement to the user; wherein the act of calculating the projected need is based upon at least one parameter from the group comprising an upgrade factor of switching from an existing asset to a new asset, a predicted useful life of the at least one asset, a business adjustment factor representative of a business direction indicative of expansion of patient services in view of local competition, and a patient increase factor (PIF) representative of a projected increase in patient care.