Article: Hospitals Prescribe Real-Time Asset Tracking

By Brian Albright, for Integrated Solutions magazine

Hospitals are busy places that utilize thousands of medical assets to care for patients. What's more, most of these items are highly mobile: Beds, wheelchairs, infusion pumps, imaging equipment, and expensive surgical devices can travel with patients and staff throughout the hospital or even across a medical campus. Keeping track of those items so that clinicians can find the equipment they need in a timely manner has been a challenge for the healthcare industry, and more often than not staff are left to wander the halls searching for missing assets. "Most healthcare organizations are spending too much time on inefficient searches, and this time could be better spent by staff focusing on their core responsibilities," says Steffan Haithcox, senior director of marketing for AeroScout.

A growing number of hospitals have deployed RFID (radio frequency identification) and real-time location system (RTLS) technology to improve asset tracking and utilization, while allowing staff to concentrate on patient care. In a typical deployment, staff attach active RFID or Wi-Fi-based asset tracking tags to equipment, then track the items in real time using strategically placed RFID readers or, in the case of RTLS systems that utilize Wi-Fi technology, their existing wireless LAN access points. "Finding what clinicians need when they need it is imperative to patient safety and clinical outcomes and can affect staff productivity and job satisfaction," says Jason Howe, CEO of Awarepoint. "With RTLS, staff can see exactly where a piece of equipment is and simply travel or dispatch someone to its specific location. In addition, knowing the constant location, status, and movement of equipment provides business intelligence that allows administrators to make incremental process changes and analyses to optimize asset utilization."

Used with permission from Integrated Solutions magazine.

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