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RFID Tidies Up Distribution of Hospital Scrubs
When the employee removes the uniform items needed for a shift and closes the closet door, this engages the lock and triggers the 13.56 MHz Feig Electronic reader, also inside the closet. The interrogator takes a reading of the closet's contents, using antennas mounted on each shelf to read the tags embedded in the stored uniforms and update the inventory.
When uniform stock falls below a set level, the system sends an alert over the hospital's uniform inventory software, ensuring that the staff replenishes the shelves before letting them fall empty.
Each employee places used uniform items in a bin designated for soiled laundry. As the items are placed in the bin, a reader mounted inside it is trigged to read the tags. The interrogator then sends the garment IDs and a time stamp to the back-end software, which updates its records to show that those particular garments have been submitted for laundry and are no longer in the possession of the employee who removed them from the closet.
The software also notes the hospital ward in which each employee works, enabling accounting records to charge the ward accordingly for laundry services.
The circular tags are enclosed in a rugged, seamless plastic casing, a process known as overmolding, to help them withstand the high temperatures and pressures of industrial laundering. Each tag has a small profile at 22 mm in diameter and tag holds 2 kilobits of rewritable memory. (Texas Instruments has also just launched a 256-bit memory version of the tag, designed for applications that do not require a full 2 kilobits of memory.)
According to Texi founder Vidar Kvalheim, the results of the St. Olavs uniform-tracking system have been very positive. Kvalheim says the hospital expects to save several million Norwegian kroner each year through improved inventory accuracy and labor reductions. Since the new system required 90 percent less space than the old system (which was housed in an older, now defunct facility), it has already saved an estimated 40 million kroner ($6 million) in space savings.
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When uniform stock falls below a set level, the system sends an alert over the hospital's uniform inventory software, ensuring that the staff replenishes the shelves before letting them fall empty.
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| More than 100 RFID-enabled storage closets have already been installed at 10 different sites around the hospital. |
Each employee places used uniform items in a bin designated for soiled laundry. As the items are placed in the bin, a reader mounted inside it is trigged to read the tags. The interrogator then sends the garment IDs and a time stamp to the back-end software, which updates its records to show that those particular garments have been submitted for laundry and are no longer in the possession of the employee who removed them from the closet.
The software also notes the hospital ward in which each employee works, enabling accounting records to charge the ward accordingly for laundry services.
The circular tags are enclosed in a rugged, seamless plastic casing, a process known as overmolding, to help them withstand the high temperatures and pressures of industrial laundering. Each tag has a small profile at 22 mm in diameter and tag holds 2 kilobits of rewritable memory. (Texas Instruments has also just launched a 256-bit memory version of the tag, designed for applications that do not require a full 2 kilobits of memory.)
According to Texi founder Vidar Kvalheim, the results of the St. Olavs uniform-tracking system have been very positive. Kvalheim says the hospital expects to save several million Norwegian kroner each year through improved inventory accuracy and labor reductions. Since the new system required 90 percent less space than the old system (which was housed in an older, now defunct facility), it has already saved an estimated 40 million kroner ($6 million) in space savings.
