Mar 18, 2014Turkish RFID startup Borda Technology has begun marketing its asset-management and real-time location system (RTLS) solutions for the health-care market in the United States, while the technology is currently in use in Istanbul. The company's asset-management solutions employ passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags and handheld readers, while the RTLS combines passive EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID technology and Borda's active RFID products. Both solutions employ Borda's Lighthouse software platform. The combination of RTLS and passive RFID technologies, the company reports, is less expensive than a purely RTLS solution in which high-cost active tags are used for all assets, whether or not the items themselves are of high value.
The company, headquartered in Istanbul, also opened an office in Florida, from which it has begun marketing the Lighthouse solution to help track both assets and individuals (staff members and patients), in order to improve enterprise-wide efficiency. To date, the Lighthouse system has been adopted by Turkey's Medical Park Hospitals Group, and is installed at two of the group's medical facilities in Istanbul, while installation is presently underway at four additional locations, with a total of 17 hospitals scheduled to undergo installation during the next year or so.
Borda Technology was founded in 2007 in Istanbul by two brothers, Akin and Erdem Altunbas, along with Enes Cavli, the company's CTO. The three men began working together at Istanbul Technical University in 2003, completing a variety of academic RFID-based projects. The company opened a U.S. office at the University of South Florida (USF) Polytechnic, in Lakeland, Fla., in 2010, and then moved it to USF's Connect Tampa campus the following year. The company has 28 employees, two of whom are now permanently located in the Tampa office, with the rest in Turkey.
The founders launched their firm with the intention of developing hardware and software products to help institutions run their operations much more efficiently. As they developed their products, Akin Altunbas says, the three men realized "that by using technology for tracking assets and patients at a hospital, we can not only help them to run their operations much more efficiently, but also save lives. This is the point where we started on focusing on standards-based RTLS solutions in the health-care industry."
Borda Technology has been developing RFID solutions at its R&D location at Istanbul Technical University, as well as at USF. Its first installation has been with the Medical Park Hospitals Group, which operates 17 hospitals throughout the country, housing a total of 2,771 beds.
In 2009, Medical Park Hospitals' IT department began seeking an RTLS vendor to provide a system that would help it manage assets throughout its facilities. In so doing, it came across the new Istanbul-based startup. The group then began working with Borda Technologies, Altunbas says, and Borda recommended deploying a hybrid solution. Passive EPC Gen 2 tags, being less expensive, could be placed on every asset within a health-care facility, and be tracked according to zones set up at that facility, he explains. Borda installed 80 fixed readers and 300 antennas at the hospital, in addition to providing two handheld readers, and also created 80 zones for passive tracking, in order to identify when assets were moved from one area of the building to another.
For tracking patients and personnel, the solution utilizes active 433 MHz RFID tags compliant with the ISO 18000-7 standard. In the case of passive RFID tag tracking, Altunbas reports, the system has reduced the amount of labor time workers previously spent counting assets from three or four weeks down to only one or two days, and with more accurate results. The first installation took place at the Medical Park Goztepe Hospital Complex, and the company is currently in the process of installing the technology at all 17 hospitals, as well as at the new facility, beginning with the passive asset-management solution.
In each case, Altunbas says, the hospitals will have an average of 3,000 passive IQ Series UHF RFID labels (provided by Omni-ID) affixed to assets, printed and encoded with Zebra Technologies RZ400 RFID printers; 1,000 active tags (manufactured by Borda) worn by personnel and patients, as well as attached to critical or high-value equipment; and 80 Motorola Solutions FX9500 and FX7400 EPC Gen 2 UHF readers. Hospital employees also use Motorola MC3190-Z EPC Gen 2 UHF handhelds.
At hospitals where the Lighthouse RTLS solution is installed, Borda also provides passive high-frequency (HF) Smartrac MiniTrack Near Field Communication (NFC) RFID tags that are attached to the same patient wristband containing an active tag. In that way, nurses can use NFC readers built into phones or tablets to quickly identify patients. Bar-coded wristbands, Altunbas says, would not work as easily, since they require a line of sight. "NFC tags are very easy to use—and fast," he states. "All you have to do is a very quick touch."
When a passive tag is first attached to an asset, Altunbas explains, its tag ID number is associated with that item's serial number and other details. That data is stored in Borda Technology's software, residing on the hospital's database. Other details, such as the object's expiration or maintenance dates, are also stored in the software. As the item is moved around the hospital, it proceeds from one zone to another by passing through a reader checkpoint. As the reader captures the asset tag's ID, it forwards that information to the software via a cabled connection, and the item's location is thereby updated. In the event that its expiration or maintenance date is approaching, an alert can be issued to management. The system also alerts hospital personnel if a tagged asset has passed its recorded maintenance or calibration date and is entering an operating room zone.
Employees can then utilize the handheld to visit a specific zone and seek that item, and take it to be serviced or replaced. They can also conduct inventory counts within each room, identifying any items that should be moved to another location or be serviced.
Upon admittance, each patient is provided with a wristband containing a Borda AW1020 433 MHz active tag, and that individual's name and medical history are linked to that tag ID. Borda RD8200 readers, as well as LT9400 locators (which come with an infrared transmitter, when necessary), then read the tag's ID number in real time and identify where that patient is located. If staff members ever need to locate a particular patient—to administer medication, for example—the Lighthouse software will indicate that person's location. The system can also send an alert every time a patient leaves his room. If there is an emergency, the patient can press the button on his wristband tag and the software will send an alert to the appropriate recipient. The software can also prompt the reader nodes to issue an alert, displayed on the wristband's screen, to the patient—if such an action has been preplanned—indicating, for instance, that she should take her medication.
For infants, an active RFID ankle tag is attached to each newborn's ankle, also linked to that child's identity. If someone attempts to remove a baby from the hospital's newborn unit, the reader will detect that movement and transmit an alert to management.
Additionally, staff members wear active RFID badges to help identify which services are being provided to which patient. In the case of a newborn baby, if a worker with an approved active RFID tag badge takes an infant out of the newborn unit—to bring the child to his or her mother, for example—no alert is sent; however, that action is stored in the software. Upon presenting the baby to the patient, the nurse presses the button on the mother's wristband indicating that the child has been safely delivered to its parent.
Borda also provides a Valet Management System with RTLS installations. An outpatient or visitor, in this case, receives a valet tag. When that person is ready to leave the hospital, he presses the tag's button. The valet tag includes a Borda 433 MHz active tag that transmits a unique ID number. The Lighthouse software calculates the tag's location and forwards that ID to the valet staff member, who can then retrieve that individual's car as he leaves the premises.
The software can either reside on the user's own server and be integrated with that user's own management system, or be provided on a cloud-based server hosted by Borda.
Medical Park Hospitals Group's CIO, Adem Dogruyol—an MD who holds a master's degree on the subject of "Applications of RFID in Healthcare"—reports that Borda Technology devised a "state-of-the-art approach to solve our complex problem, which includes tracking almost every human and asset at our hospitals." Borda told Dogruyol that combining multiple technologies into a single solution would be the best option. "We have finalized installing passive RFID readers and antennas all around the hospital, back in 2010, creating 80 zones in one hospital," he states, and Medical Park Hospitals Group is now adding active RFID and NFC technologies "to be able to increase the visibility throughout the hospital, with many applications."
Ahmet Usta, Medical Park Hospitals Group's chief analytics officer, says that since installing Borda Technology's Lighthouse RFID systems, the medical facilities have increased visibility into their operations. "They [Borda's system] enhanced the asset utilization, and they started to measure the parameters of some of the operations, like the duration of transportation of a patient from her room to the surgery room."
Borda is currently in discussions with several U.S. hospitals to either pilot or install the asset-management and RTLS solutions at their facilities.
