Brigham & Women's Hospital extends equipment tracking hospital-wide after proving a fast return on investment

Payback documented in just over a year. Nurses will get out of the "hunting and gathering" business. Radianse provides the real-time location on hospital's existing network.

Boston, MA, June 20, 2006 — Brigham & Women's Hospital (BWH), Boston, has paved the way for a fast, direct route from any of its 747 beds to the portable medical equipment critical to effective care. Real-time location of infusion pumps, portable monitors, defibrillators or other tracked devices will be as close as the nearest web browser across all major care areas on 17 hospital floors — including perioperative and emergency departments.

It's a move BWH knows will payback immediately in nurse and patient satisfaction — and in months financially. The hospital's confidence in investing to track 6,000 medical devices hospital-wide is based on strong results from its pilot of a Radianse indoor positioning solution (IPS).

50% cut in losses, fast return: a 'must do' project
Led by Michael Fraai, BWH director of biomedical engineering, the pilot tracked several hundred valuable devices including external pacers, telemetry transmitters and 12-lead cables. There were early clues of improved staff satisfaction. Then analysis showed a 50% reduction in losses of the pilot's tracked equipment. Ultimately, the hospital documented a return on investment in just over a year; details are expected to be published by Fraai later this year.

By extending equipment tracking hospital-wide, the hospital anticipates equally strong payback.

"We first investigated indoor positioning to address dissatisfaction rates. Surgeons were waiting for essential equipment to be found before procedures could begin. Nurses were typically charged with hunting and gathering, which took them away from direct patient care. And we wanted to intervene before patient wait times became too long," said Fraai. Sue Schade, chief information officer at BWH, added, "There are lots of important problems to solve in healthcare and budgets are not unlimited. The work that Michael and his team did around technology evaluation and ROI analysis bumped this from a 'nice to have' to a 'must do' project."

A responsible move
"When we started looking at this approach, it was very new. We couldn't just jump in. We had to be responsible and validate the payback of a real-time IPS," said Fraai. "We needed a technology that would not interfere with other wireless systems and, assuming positive results, one that would not be difficult to expand," Fraai added.

Radianse uses active radio frequency identification (active-RFID) and a patented location algorithm to track people and things; receivers connect to the hospital's existing network. Simple, web-based "find" applications display results in a list or graphical view.

"Brigham, and Michael in particular, has been a valuable collaborator with Radianse almost from the start," said Mike Dempsey, chief technology officer. "The hospital team really did its homework to prove that this is an investment worth making. We appreciate their thoughtful approach. Many times their insights have helped us improve our applications, and certainly have helped other hospitals as they evaluate various technologies."

Long-range tags, existing network, room-level accuracy
A Radianse IPS was originally installed at BWH to cover nine cardiac care units, six cardiac operating rooms and the connecting common areas, and the portals of the Radiology, Cath Lab and post-anesthesia care units. The expanded Radianse system will provide real-time equipment tracking across all Med/Surg units, intensive care units, ORs and perioperative spaces, the emergency department and hospital common areas. BWH has selected room level coverage for the patient areas and zone level coverage for its common areas.

The completed installation will mean that any authorized staff member can use the Radianse web application to see the room or 'zone' where a type or a specific piece of equipment is located and whether or not it's in use.

BWH also plans to take advantage of Radianse alerts and analysis to better understand and manage how medical equipment and devices flow with patients and through procedures.

About Brigham & Women's Hospital
Brigham and Women's Hospital is a 747-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare System, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832 and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives, dedication to educating and training health care professionals, and strength in biomedical research. With $370M in funding and more than 500 research scientists, BWH is an acclaimed leader in clinical, basic and epidemiological investigation - including the landmark Nurses Health Study, Physicians Health Studies, and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit: www.brighamandwomens.org.

About Radianse
Radianse, Inc., Lawrence, Mass., provides hospitals with location-enabled workflow solutions to improve patient flow and resource management. At the core of Radianse solutions is the company's indoor positioning system (IPS), which uses active-RFID tags, LAN-ready receivers and web-based location analysis software to locate and associate medical equipment, patients and staff. Additional software extends this integrated view to include beds, ADT, orders, labs, and medical equipment, helping hospitals reduce costs, improve efficiencies and safety and increase satisfaction and revenues.

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