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From Healthcare IT News
By Rick Ramseyer, Contributing writer BOSTON — Brigham and Women's Hospital is among a lengthening list of healthcare facilities testing radio-frequency identification technology to track critical medical equipment. Brigham, with 750-plus beds, has been using the battery-operated RFID tags since mid-November to keep tabs on three types of equipment – telemetry transmitters, temporary pacemakers and 12-lead EKG cables – on nine inpatient units and in six operating rooms. The goal is to minimize equipment losses, which at many hospitals can total thousands of dollars annually. A telemetry transmitter, for instance, is about the size of a calculator and costs roughly $1,500. "It's easy to lose, whether it gets stuck in a patient's pocket or ends up in the laundry," said Jennifer Leigh Jackson, Brigham's assistant director of biomedical engineering. "So there's a substantial opportunity for savings." Pacemakers, meanwhile, are shared among multiple hospital units at Brigham, often resulting in a who's-got-one scramble. "You cannot begin cardiac surgery without a pacemaker, and we sometimes see [staff] looking for 20 or 30 minutes," Jackson said. The RFID tags, provided by Radianse Inc. in Lawrence, Mass., are the size of a car-key pod and are glued to the item being tracked. The tags send out a radio signal to receivers connected to the hospital's computer network, and the information is relayed to a server. Software then calculates the equipment's location. "So a nurse looking for a pacemaker might see there are five available on another floor," said John Pantano, Radianse's vice president of marketing. Though prices vary, the RFID technology typically costs around $1,000 per licensed bed, said Pantano, noting Brigham expects ROI within a year. Fran Turisco, research director for Boston-based First Consulting Group, which is evaluating RFID use at Brigham, says the next step is implementing an alert system. "If a telemetry transmitter leaves the area, an alert fires and creates, for example, a page that goes to the charge nurse," Turisco said. Equipment tracking is only part of the story. Facilities such as Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are tapping RFID to track patients and staff as well. "We've seen a lot of growth in those areas," Pantano said. Continue to full article at Healthcare IT News ...
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