RFID to improve patient safety and hospital savings by RFID Gazette

Imagine the hospital of the future where unnecessary expenses will be cut and more patient lives will be saved. Say goodbye to the inefficiencies of the old hospital and welcome the new, highly cost-effective system of asset and personnel tracking, patient care, and billing, the keystone of which will be radio frequency identification technology.
RFID technology is already being deployed across the pharmaceutical industry to combat drug counterfeiting. The next frontier is the patient care center, in which the technology will be used to track medical instruments as well as patients and hospital personnel. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has recently stated new safety goals that should further expedite the process of RFID implementation in this field. It is not difficult to conclude that RFID technology should become a critical success factor for the medical center of the 21st century in terms of both improved patient safety and improved hospital savings.
Parco Merged Media is one company that is focused on delivering this technology. They are a middleware and hardware provider of ultra wideband (UWB) tracking systems that concentrates exclusively on healthcare providers, i.e. doctors' offices and hospitals, according to Parco CEO Scott Cohen. The Parco Wireless Healthcare System (WHCS) is fully compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless standard.
In a remote demonstration using software proprietary to Parco, Cohen showcased his company's UWB Real Time Location System to the RFID Gazette from their 3,000-square-foot demonstration facility located in Portland, Maine. The Parco Wireless Solutions Center is a full-scale model replica of two hospital rooms and a hallway. During our demonstration, there were several items tagged with active UWB RFID chips whose movements we were able to track in real time. While Parco offers three-dimensional tracking, our demonstration tracked in only two dimensions.
The model hospital has one passive receiver located on each of the four sides of the facility. Each individual battery-powered UWB tag on an item actively transmits a signal to these receivers at a rate between one and four times per second. On average, each tag transmits approximately 1.5 MB of data per second. The four receivers then transmit this data to one central processor hub via a CAT-5 cable. Back in the RFID Gazette's Los Angeles office, we were able to track the movements of one particular tagged item using the Parco Trigger Demonstration software over the Internet.View screenshots 2 3 4.
What makes Parco's system unique is its application of UWB technology. Approved in June 2002 by FCC Chairman Michael Powell, UWB lends itself well to its use in hospitals and doctors' offices because unlike many other wireless technologies, UWB does not create interference with other devices.
There are several uses of RFID that will improve patient safety. Implanting chips inside surgical instruments will virtually eliminate the mistake of leaving an item inside of a sewn-up patient at the conclusion of an operation. RFID labels can also be attached to the patients themselves to verify their identities, location and the exact procedure to be performed by the hospital staff. Patients can also be more effectively tracked by billing systems to ensure that the hospital does not lose track of any charges incurred.
Parco's website claims that having the ability to track assets in real time will greatly reduce the number of IV pumps needed on site per day, enabling the average hospital to save more than $2 million per year. Comparable savings can be applied to other medical equipment, such as pulse oximeters, EKG machines and wheelchairs.
Cohen says that Parco is currently working on adding sensors to the tags. These sensors would be able to report important data regarding the environment, including temperature and humidity. Sensors could also be adapted to connect to medical instruments and report to medical staff in a remote location data about the patient, including heart rate, body temperature, etc. Tags on assets could be motion-sensitive so that they would only transmit data to the receivers while moving.
"The industry is just reaching the apex point where it's starting to take off," Cohen says. Right now, very few hospitals in the world even have barcodes on many of their assets. But with the ability to track assets in real-time with RFID, many expect that hospitals will eventually shift to this wireless tracking system.
According to Cohen, Parco is also looking at the personnel application side. Hospital managers need to have the ability to track where their personnel are located and exactly when they arrive to start work each day. Restricting access of certain areas to certain groups of people is also a major concern. UWB RFID personnel badges the size of a credit card can be tracked in real time just like any other asset as well as limit access of certain rooms to only those who have the appropriate requirements encoded on their badge's chip.
In addition, Parco has teamed up with the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. to integrate RFID asset tracking and security control into the next generation of emergency facilities. ER One will be an "all risks-ready" medical center to be prepared for any large-scale terrorist attack, including the use of bio-terrorism.

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