by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | November 21, 2014
From the November 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
In 2013, the Texas hospital examined by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality ranked in the 95th percentile or higher on patient satisfaction ratings for promptness of response to call bell, pain control, and wait time in the emergency department before being admitted to the hospital, all things that hospital officials connect to RTLS. Location information can also be used to assess hand-hygiene compliance via a staff member’s badge and sensors integrated into soap dispensers. For example, an alert can be triggered if a staff member leaves one patient’s room and then goes into another without washing their hands.
Chris Allen, director of sales operations at RTLS provider Radianse, says hospitals should also look at the safety components. The company has been working with a hospital in New York that has had incidents of assaults on staff members. Tagged badges can be used in the event that a staff member is attacked, and can sense the difference between someone bending to tie their shoes and being knocked to the ground. “That’s a big driver for the adoption of these types of technologies because they can be leveraged for improvement,” CenTrak ‘s Peck says.
Patient centered
Hospitals have been concentrating on setting up electronic medical records systems, and tracking technology can be integrated with the software, says Joe Pleshek, president and CEO of Terso Solutions, which uses passive RFID for the inventorying of high-value materials, such as heart valves. Terso’s cabinets are integrated with third-party software systems, so RFID information can be sent to the partner system and be married with the patient’s ID and integrated into the EMR.
Tracking for something of even greater value can also utilize RFID. The technology can be used to tag infants and make sure they’re paired with the mother’s wristband, says Mickael Viot, marketing and business development manager for DecaWave.
Advice on install
When considering whether to install a system, hospital leaders need to look at the big picture. “The return on investment is tied to the scope of what you do,” says Dr. Paul Frisch, chief of Biomedical Physics and Engineering at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and president of the RFID in Healthcare Consortium. “A hospital has to plan to do a large-scale, institutional type of solution.
“A lot of hospitals are waiting to see what happens, and there are concerns that the technology will change over time,” Frisch says. “None of that has really happened.” The cost of the investment depends on the size of facility. Some systems use existing Wi-Fi networks, which can have some limitations, while others with dedicated antennas require you to build up an infrastructure, Frisch says. Many facilities start with cabinets for implants and using passive RFID tags for high-value supplies, along with surgical instruments and sponges.
