Harrisburg Hospital Adds Hospital-Wide Equipment Tracking Solution Building on Successful OR Patient-Flow System

Radianse active-RFID solution enables staff to easily track and locate equipment anywhere in the hospital

Lawrence, Mass., September 6, 2006 — After proving the technology’s potential to increase efficiency, communication, and staff and patient satisfaction by tracking patients as they move through different perioperative areas, PinnacleHealth’s Harrisburg Hospital has extended its use of Radianse’s active radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to immediately locate equipment throughout the hospital. Radianse, a leading provider of real-time indoor positioning solutions (IPSs) in healthcare, has deployed thousands of ID-tags and will eventually have over 10,000 ID-tags in use at the 546-bed hospital in one of the largest deployments in healthcare.

“We’re basically putting the tags on everything that moves, from top to bottom in the hospital,” said George Morley, director of biomedical engineering at PinnacleHealth, the hospital’s parent organization. “We expected some staff resistance to the idea at first, but instead we’ve been absolutely inundated with requests to tag more equipment.”

Starting off Strong with Patients

The Radianse solution combines active-RFID tags, receivers that connect to a hospital’s existing network, a patented location algorithm, and simple, easy-to-use Web-based applications to quickly and accurately track people and things.

Dr. Craig Wisman, vice president of medical affairs for PinnacleHealth, spearheaded the initial project to transform perioperative workflow through the use of RFID at Harrisburg Hospital and its sister institution, Community Hospital, both of which couple Radianse technology with software from one of Radianse’s partners, PeriOptimum.

“We faced capacity constraints in the OR that we were able to address by improving the efficiency of patient flow,” Dr. Wisman said. “This is primarily a sophisticated communication tool for our staff, allowing them to see what’s going on at a glance, anticipate needs and eliminate surprises. Its effectiveness depends on a very robust indoor location system that has the granularity — the very specific location pinpointing ability — that we need to accomplish our goals.”

Tracking Equipment from Top to Bottom

Making sure that equipment is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there, was a primary goal of the Radianse implementation.

“When I first started at PinnacleHealth 23 years ago, I remember one of my initial meetings was about wheelchair availability,” Morley said. “We continually tried to remedy the problem, but nothing worked. I finally got to the point where I said, there has to be an electronic solution to this, and I’m not having another meeting to discuss this issue until we find it. Knowing where everything is has a huge impact on our overall efficiency as an organization, and consequently on our cost-effectiveness.”

Morley also cited staff satisfaction and loss prevention as two additional benefits of the Radianse technology. “Our staff spent a considerable amount of time looking for devices, which is no longer an issue,” Morley explained. “In addition, we had a scenario recently in which a piece of equipment went missing. Because it had been tagged, we knew right away that the equipment had probably been stolen when it disappeared from the system. In the past, we wouldn’t have had enough evidence to support our claim that theft was responsible for the lost equipment, so insurance wouldn’t pay for replacement. Not only do we have enough data to support our contention, but we also have a powerful word-of-mouth inhibitor to discourage future losses.”

In the future, PinnacleHealth plans to use the Radianse tags on rental equipment to ensure that costly devices get returned on time and do not incur further, unnecessary fees.

RFID over WiFi

Early in the investigative process, PinnacleHealth explored WiFi technology as a possible real-time location system (RTLS), determining that RFID was ultimately the best option.

“Some of the problems with WiFi are the sheer complexity and number of additional access points required throughout the hospital and the manpower needed to constantly calibrate the system to locate properly,” explained Morley. “Even normal everyday traffic can affect accuracy, and in the constantly ‘under construction’ hospital environment, this would be a continual problem. Additionally, with more and more devices becoming wireless, we were concerned that too many pieces of equipment would be talking to the same access point at the same time, particularly in high-concentration equipment areas such as the ICU and OR, disrupting the flow of information. Last but not least, we needed a tag with a battery life that lasted years, not days.”

Morley continued, “With Radianse, we get a dedicated indoor positioning system designed specifically for healthcare that is highly accurate and stable with minimal maintenance and upkeep — it can even send out messages when something needs to be done.”

Growing Momentum

Radianse indoor positioning solutions have proven their value across a wide range of academic, tertiary and community institutions, including Yale-New Haven Hospital, Mississippi Baptist Health System in Jackson and Community Medical Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to name a few.

“Now that more and more early adopters are achieving a quick return on investment with Radianse, usually in 12 to 18 months, we’re seeing more organizations move directly into whole-house commitments and installations,” said Mark Sakaniwa, chief executive officer of Radianse. “Radianse is on track to complete five to six hospital-wide installations in the remaining four months or the year, in addition to our many multi-departmental clients.”

About PinnacleHealth

PinnacleHealth is a charitable organization committed to improving the health and quality of life for the people of Central Pennsylvania. PinnacleHealth includes four campuses (Community, Harrisburg, Polyclinic and Seidle), FamilyCare physician practices, home health and hospice services, FirstPlace urgent care center and an array of healthcare services.

About Radianse

Radianse, Inc., provides hospitals with location-enabled workflow solutions that improve patient flow and resource management. The company’s indoor positioning solutions (IPSs) use active-RFID tags, LAN-ready receivers and Web-based location analysis software to locate medical equipment, patients and staff. Additional software applications extend 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. For more information, please visit www.radianse.com.

Top of Page