I worked for a startup that tracked hospital equipment (with active RFID tags), and it was shocking how disorganized hospitals can be. It's not usually a single person or department's fault though - there are a bunch of factors:

- equipment is often managed by a small team who doesn't have the resources to really track down everything

- equipment gets distributed to different departments who then might move it, store it, swap it, it breaks down and they don't tell anyone, etc

- theft can be a big issue: equipment is often very expensive and not very large, which means it has the ability to "walk off"

- different departments (or individuals) might hoard equipment because it can be difficult to get what you need exactly when you need it

- data about what you have can be split across 15 different systems that don't have the ability to talk or reconcile

- "full" real time tracking (like what we made) can be very expensive

So yes - there are systems that can help, but they're expensive and often not a first priority (even though they can help tremendously, especially when it comes time to do maintenance and reordering, etc.)

The NHS is notorious for having little to no connected IT systems. It's not that the data doesn't exist but it's so siloed that even within Health Boards it is hard to access.