At Wayne Memorial, RFID Pays for Itself

According to Jackson, conventional RFID technology has range and positioning inaccuracy because passive tags have to be too close to readers, and because active tags can't be differentiated in close quarters. However, he claims, MIMO technology solves the problem of trying to determine the locations of multiple active tags in close quarters. "By building a system that has many synchronized reader antennas (multiple inputs) and collecting this information-rich data stream (multiple outputs)," he says, "you can use the laws of physics to get the answers you are looking for."

Caregivers can access all the data culled from the tags via a software program to locate and determine the status of a variety of equipment. "One of the issues we know," says Terry Kane, RadarFind's CEO, "is that for a vast majority of people in hospitals, they aren't very computer-savvy. This software was developed with that in mind, and features a touch-screen interface. It is very user-friendly.". The software also features color coding and simple map views, as well as sophisticated reporting functions that caregivers and administrators can use to track maintenance, trend equipment utilization and ultimately make better planning and budgeting decisions.

Those reporting features have enabled Wayne Memorial to save about $303,000 on infusion pumps. The hospital studied its infusion pump utilization during the two-month period between February and March, and found it was using only about 50 to 60 percent of all its infusion pumps throughout the hospital. "We tracked the utilization pumps because Wayne is going to replace all the pumps in May of this year," Kane says. Once the hospital determined it wasn't fully utilizing all the infusion pumps it had on hand, it decided to order fewer replacements. Instead of the more than 300 pumps it initially planned to buy, it now will purchase only about 250 pumps. This will save it nearly $276,000, plus an additional $27,000 in operating costs for those added pumps. "That roughly saved them $303,000," Kane notes, "and that is more than it costs to install the system."

The RFID-based RTLS is also saving the hospital time. Before Wayne installed the RadarFind system, whenever a caregiver called for a wheelchair, it typically took about 20 minutes for it to arrive. Now that the wheelchairs are tagged, the wait time is usually somewhere between two and five minutes.

In addition, the hospital has drastically cut the time it takes to inventory all its wheelchairs. Instead of spending an entire day, once a month, looking for and collecting all the wheelchairs the hospital has, Bradshaw says, the task can now be done anytime and takes just minutes.

This translates to the patients being a lot happier," says Carrasco. "When you can deliver better care in a timely manner with patient safety in mind, the quality of care goes up. And that is the goal of Wayne Memorial."