The medical care industry has never been more focused than now on ways to reduce expenses and save more patients lives. Technology is helping to increase these efficiencies. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology specifically is being put to work in different areas of the system such as asset, patient and baby tracking, patient-bedside care, and helping make Operating Room procedures safer.

Asset Tracking using RFID:

Healthcare facilities invest large amounts capital in upgrading and maintaining expensive equipment required by healthcare professionals for diagnostics, treatment and monitoring of patients. It is critical that the equipment is available when required. When the equipment needed is not readily available this leads to many undesirable outcomes:

• Staff are sent scrambling through the halls and over many floors to find the equipment they need,
• An institution acquires additional equipment to compensate for constantly missplaced equipment
• Patient health could be compromised when a machine is not available when needed.

RFID technology resolves most of the above. The technology can as simple as attaching an RFID tag to each piece of equipment and strategically locating readers throughout the area of operations where the hardware is used. In this way, any device can be located when needed.  Staff can know where in the facility a certain piece of equipment is located when they really need to have it. The result is less time wasted, better utilization of existing assets and patient care improves.

Patient Tracking Solutions:

Hospitals and Health Care facilities are more concerned these days about having the ability to accurately track and accurately identify their patients. Whether it’s dispensing medication or identifying the individual for procedures or pulling up a history of treatment on a patient; RFID technology with the appropriate software is a way to manage the information much more efficiently.

An RFID enabled system is used for accurately locating and tracking people, equipment and objects in a hospital. The system can be designed to track hospital assets, curb excess expenditures, increase safety and ensure security and access control by placing small radio frequency identification devices, or ‘RFID tags’ on people and objects.

Hospitals and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are facing daily challenges especially when responding to emergencies. They need to be able to manage a large number of patients during an emergency effectively and efficiently.

The institution is responsible for the care and safety of patients. If a patient is missing from their hospital bed or emergency ward the responsibility rests with the healthcare organization. RFID makes tracking and finding patients easier. Administering bedside care is safer, faster, because of realtime and accurate identification and verification of patient.

Newborn Baby Tracking Solutions
The Maternity Ward is a place for joy and celebration as new family members are welcomed into the world. The ward staff shares some of this joy by playing their part throughout the labor and the post-partum care of mother and newborn child. However anxiety levels rise for the patients, families and staff when there are complications during the labor and/or when the newborn needs neonatal care. In many of these instances the baby and the mother need to be separated, a scenario that creates anxiety. Anxiety can easily turn to anger and a possible law suit when there is a mother-baby mix up; the wrong baby being sent to the wrong mother for the crucial early bonding period, breast-feeding etc.

RFID technology will help both these difficult and challenging situations. At the time of admittance the mother is provided with a patient’s RFID tag that will start the process of tracking all procedures relevant to that labor. Once the child is born, an ankle tag is provided to the baby as well and immediately cross-referenced to the baby’s mother and the mother’s tag.

Family Access to Babies in Neonatal Care:

In the case of the newborn needing neonatal care, family members are almost as anxious as the new mother, to greet and bond with the new family member. When the newborn needs to be in an intensive care unit (ICU) this becomes very difficult due to the restricted access in the ICU. RFID solves this problem by making available to families the ability to view on a computer monitor outside of the ICU the key data about the baby, a photograph, the height, weight, skin color and temperature after keying in, for example, the mother’s family name and first name.

Mother-Baby Mix-ups Eliminated:
Even when the mix up is uncovered moments after the mistake is made, this can cause heightened levels of anger and dissatisfaction with the services rendered. Any mother-baby mix up is a potential liability to the hospital. This scenario can be eliminated when staff follows a procedure of reading the baby’s RFID tag and then reading the mother’s RFID tag and re-confirming the match that was initiated at the birth.

GAORFID Solution:

RFID can seem like a jungle at times. GAORFID has a team of sales and support staff that will help you through the maze and identify the right solution for your particular set of requirements. GAO RFID can develop a turnkey RFID solution for your asset or patient tracking needs. GAORFID has a complete cross section of RFID solutions including best of breed RFID readers and RFID tags, software and systems integration services. To learn more about how RFID technology can help solve your patient tracking needs, please contact us at sales@gaorfid.com.