Apr 25, 2014Health-care solutions company Technologies Solutions Group (TSG) is marketing a new RFID-based system for managing employees' hand-hygiene compliance. The Sani-Track system consists of a wall unit comprising a motion sensor and an RFID reader, along with readers installed in the ceiling and badges containing EPC Gen 2 passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags.
The Sani-Track system has been used during a trial at an unnamed New England hospital for the past two years, as well as, more recently, at a nursing home (which has also requested to remain unnamed) as a method of preventing hospital acquired infections (HAIs) by improving the rate of staff hand-washing. Workers wear RFID badges designed and manufactured for the application by Rippedsheets.com, a Washington-based maker and printer of RFID labels, signs, tags, posters and cards.
According to Tom Jackson, Technologies Solutions Group's president, the facilities' existing hand-hygiene dispensers were installed onto TSG's wall-mounted Sani-Track devices, which can accommodate all models of soap and sanitizer dispensers. In addition, he says, Motorola Solutions RFID readers were mounted on the ceiling above the doorways to rooms in which the dispensers are installed.
Staff members each wear a Rippedsheets RFID badge on a lanyard or attached to a lapel. The unique ID number encoded to the badge's tag can be linked to that worker's own information if the employer wishes to track individuals. If the hospital or another institution requires more generic information, the tag ID can be linked only to a specific shift or ward. In that way, an individual user could maintain a higher level of privacy. When a staff member enters a room, such as an operating suite or a patient room, the ceiling reader captures that person's badge's tag ID number and forwards it to the Sani-Track software, which can reside either on a facility's back-end server or on a hosted, cloud-based server. The software then expects that ID to be detected again at the hand-washing dispenser.
When the individual places his or her hands immediately in front of the dispenser, the Sani-Track device senses that movement and activates its built-in RFID reader. The reader captures the tag ID and sends it to the software via a Power-over-Ethernet connection, which updates that individual's status to indicate that hand-washing has occurred. If, at any time, the software determines that a particular worker failed to wash his or her hands, that non-compliance event is stored either with the individual's name or with the more generic information, such as that person' shift or ward assignment. The hospital can then use that data to better education its staff.
TSG also offers a lower-cost, non-RFID version of the Sani-Track system, thereby reducing installation costs. In this case, the Sani-Track wall units do not read RFID badges, but simply record each dispenser use, based on motion sensor data, and every activity is then stored in the software after being sent to the server via the ZigBee mesh network (each Sani-Track wall-unit contains a ZigBee radio). The Sani-Track software compares the actual number of hand-washing events against the expected number of such actions during a specific time, enabling users to educate personnel on a general level.
Simply by installing the system, Jackson says, a hospital or a nursing home can see its hand-hygiene compliance rates rise, due to workers' knowledge that their behavior is being tracked. In addition, the data provides an educational tool to help facilities to better understand their staff's compliance, and to then adjust training accordingly.
Sani-Track offers several advantages over some other RFID-based hand-hygiene compliance systems, Jackson says. For one thing, he notes, it is passive, which results in a much lower tag cost than an active system, which is common among such solutions. What's more, the hardware is agnostic to sanitizer dispensers—any brand can be installed directly onto TSG's wall units. Finally, he says, "We're not only monitoring hygiene events, but also non-compliance." Because a reader captures each employee's tag ID number as that person enters a room, the system knows who has been in the room, even if they fail to wash their hands.
Jackson says the company has been piloting the technology for two years, and has been making adjustments according to end users' requests. "We wanted to address what the industry was looking for," he states. As a result, TSG has made approximately four dozen changes to the Sani-Track system to date, in order to optimize it for use in health care or other markets. Jackson notes that the technology could also be used at pharmaceutical manufacturing sites, restaurants or other locations where staff members may handle food.
For Rippedsheets.com, the Sani-Track solution is the first of what the company expects to be many use cases for its UHF Gen 2 RFID products. The firm's factory custom-manufactures and digitally prints durable full-color RFID labels, tags, cards (plastic or cardboard), wristbands and signs. Rippedsheets.com was launched in 1997 as a provider of custom printable labels, and in 2012, the company began offering EPC Gen 2 UHF and high-frequency (HF) Near Field Communication (NFC) passive RFID labels as well, with an emphasis on custom solutions. It works with multiple RFID inlay providers, including Smartrac, says Katii Deaton, Rippedsheets.com's sales and marketing director. "We can use the customer's inlays or source our own," she states.
While demand for its UHF RFID products has so far been limited, Deaton says, the company has sold HF RFID products in large volumes, including stickers and posters with built-in NFC tags for such purposes as enabling the downloading of apps or promotional material offered at parties or other events. The firm offers an advantage over many NFC label makers based outside the United States, she adds, since Rippedsheets.com manufactures and ships its goods from its own factory, thus making the response time quicker for customers. "We can ship our products faster, and that sets us apart," she says.
