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Hospital Saves By Using RFID To Bring Asset Management In-House
The system was installed in March of this year, but there was a delay before the vendor could deliver the 1,900 transponders needed for infusion delivery systems, compression devices and respiratory equipment.
The system went live in May. It covers about 75 percent of the hospital's 1 million square feet. In the past, the hospital would have paid a contractor to locate assets and bring them to the hospital unit coordinator who requested those items, who delivers them to the patients' rooms. Today, it uses in-house staff in the materials-management department to locate the devices and bring them to the unit coordinator.
Staff can view a map of the hospital or an individual unit on the hospital intranet. The system allows them to type in an asset number to locate an asset in the areas of the hospital covered by the RTLS. They can also look at what equipment is in a certain unit, or filter by types of assets. Hardy estimates that the hospital is saving about $400,000 a year by managing assets internally, rather than paying the contractor.
The system has not been without some issues. When first installed, it was sometimes unclear which floor an asset was on. The vendor made adjustments to the system to rectify that problem. Another issue has been locating assets in an area that was formerly used for taking X-rays and consequently has lead-lined walls that interfere with the RFID equipment's RF transmissions.
The hospital is considering expanding the system to cover other areas of the hospital, such as a research lab, not currently covered by the RTLS system, and tagging additional types of assets. The team has come up with several criteria for which types of equipment to tag, such as cost, which departments use the equipment and whether better management can increase patient throughput. Hardy is in the process of validating the criteria before the decision is made to tag additional assets. The hospital is also considering training nurses to use the system, so they can also locate assets for themselves, but the big benefit has been getting a handle on the location, utilization and maintenance costs of all its mobile equipment.
"We use capital contracts to pay for the equipment," says Hardy. "Now, before we replace equipment or purchase additional equipment, we can use the RTLS to determine the utilization rate, how much time the equipment spent being repaired, whether one department is underutilizing that equipment and other things to determine whether we really need to spend that money."
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The system went live in May. It covers about 75 percent of the hospital's 1 million square feet. In the past, the hospital would have paid a contractor to locate assets and bring them to the hospital unit coordinator who requested those items, who delivers them to the patients' rooms. Today, it uses in-house staff in the materials-management department to locate the devices and bring them to the unit coordinator.
Staff can view a map of the hospital or an individual unit on the hospital intranet. The system allows them to type in an asset number to locate an asset in the areas of the hospital covered by the RTLS. They can also look at what equipment is in a certain unit, or filter by types of assets. Hardy estimates that the hospital is saving about $400,000 a year by managing assets internally, rather than paying the contractor.
The system has not been without some issues. When first installed, it was sometimes unclear which floor an asset was on. The vendor made adjustments to the system to rectify that problem. Another issue has been locating assets in an area that was formerly used for taking X-rays and consequently has lead-lined walls that interfere with the RFID equipment's RF transmissions.
"We use capital contracts to pay for the equipment," says Hardy. "Now, before we replace equipment or purchase additional equipment, we can use the RTLS to determine the utilization rate, how much time the equipment spent being repaired, whether one department is underutilizing that equipment and other things to determine whether we really need to spend that money."
