Shawnee Mission Medical Center Expands Pediatric Tracking

With the new system, all babies and pediatric patients under the age of 17 are issued transmitters embedded in a wrist or ankle band. The hospital manages a server using RF Technologies software, allowing it to interpret the data from nearly 100 interrogators installed throughout the facility, in about a dozen doorways and in the ceiling approximately 20 feet apart on the single hospital floor. The readers capture tag ID numbers as patients move throughout the medical center, and that information is directed to the server via a cabled connection. Staff members can then see an icon representing a particular patient on the screen, with a 10-second delay. On the server, the transmitted ID number is linked to that child's name and room number.

After SMMC installed the system, Quance says, the hospital conducted an abduction-response drill, which proved the system worked properly. "It's such an amazing improvement," Pahura states. "This installation was remarkably easy."

Tom Quance

The number of alarms—which had been as much as 100 per day when Shawnee Mission used the older 66 kHz RFID system—is now down to about five alarms daily, according to Deb Ohnoutka, the hospital's director of women's and children's services. Such alarms are no longer caused by RF interference, but typically occur when a patient comes close to the exit, even if that person does not pass through it. The doorway readers are set to have a 2-to 4-foot read range.

Hospital employees, who previously keyed in a password to update the computer, now wave HID 2.6 GHz RFID badges (provided by RF Technologies) in front of the machine to gain access. The facility uses about 100 RFID transmitters, which activate when connected to a patient's wrist or ankle. After patients check out, their tags are then reassigned to new arrivals.

A system such as this generally costs $75,000 to $200,000, Quance says, though he declines to specify how much the Shawnee Mission solution cost. With RF Technologies' system, the hospital can monitor every patient's location at any given time within an accuracy of 20 feet. The company provides reports to SMMC, outlining specifically why each alarm occurred. Most false alarms at the center are due to user error, such as an individual walking too close to the doorway.

Later this month, the hospital intends to begin applying RF Technologies' active tags to a limited number of assets as well, for use with the same system. While RF Technologies has not indicated which assets it would begin tagging, it currently has 30 to 40 other facilities nationwide using Safe Place tags on such equipment as fetal Dopplers, breast pumps, stethoscopes, portable thermometers and portable ultrasound machines.