Belgian Hospitals Use RFID to Track Temperatures, Assets and Patients

Dec 03, 2008Two Belgian hospitals—St. Trudo and Jan Yperman—are employing radio frequency identification to monitor the locations of assets or patients, and to track the temperatures of items at their facilities. Both deployments utilize real-time location systems provided by AeroScout, and leverage the hospitals' Wi-Fi systems.

St. Trudo—which serves the central Belgian regions of Limburg and Vlamms-Brabant—employs a staff of 700, including 80 physicians, and treats 11,000 patients each year. Its greatest equipment-tracking concerns included expensive specialty air-filled anti-decubitus mattresses, used to help prevent pressure sores on patients requiring extended stays in bed. The 310-bed hospital maintains a limited number of such mattresses on site; if it requires more than that number, it leases them at a high cost. St. Trudo had been using a log book to track its mattresses, and if a mattress's status was not properly recorded, this sometimes caused the hospital to lease a bed unnecessarily.

In addition, tracking such basic items as wheelchairs was time-consuming, requiring personnel to search for items whenever they had the opportunity.

A third problem challenged the hospital's data center. Equipment in that area was malfunctioning, leading the staff to suspect the room's temperature was too high, and damaging the facility's computer servers. The hospital, therefore, needed a means to accurately monitor the temperature in that data center.

To address these issues, the hospital began utilizing AeroScout's MobileView software and Wi-Fi-based active RFID tags in early November, says Daniël Loos, St. Trudo Hospital's manager of information and communication technology.

St. Trudo's system, according to Steffan Haithcox, AeroScout's senior director of marketing, includes a Cisco Systems Unified Wireless Network for its Wi-Fi backbone, with AeroScout Wi-Fi-based active RFID 2.4 GHz tags placed on items to be tracked throughout the facility. Systems integrator NextiraOne installed 250 Wi-Fi access points throughout the building. The Cisco network can also be employed for other wireless services, such as electronic medical records and telephone service.

The tags are attached to the hospital's specialty mattresses, IV pumps and wheelchairs. Each tag transmits a unique ID number, and that signal is received by the Wi-Fi access points. The data is sent to the MobileView software, which displays the hospital's floor plan, with an icon indicating each item's location and status. The determination of an item's status, indicated by its icon's color, is based on the asset's location, as well as how long it has been there. For example, the MobileView software can be set to display whether the asset is clean or soiled, based on where it was most recently located, such as in a utility room where soiled items are washed. In addition, if a wheelchair remains in the same location for two or more hours, the system can update its status to "no longer in use," then send out an alert to staff members to retrieve it.

The system will also alert hospital personnel when the number of wheelchairs available in a particular location, such as patient admissions, reaches a critically low level. It will also do so whenever a wheelchair is inactive for two hours, so that the chair can be returned to the reception area.

In its data center, St. Trudo attached AeroScout's Wi-Fi-based temperature-monitoring tags to the room's equipment. Each tag transmits not only its unique ID number, but also the ambient temperature. This enables the hospital's IT department to remotely monitor the room's temperature from anywhere within the hospital, or to receive alerts via mobile phone or e-mail.

"We experienced some problems with our network hardware in some locations during the night," Loos says, "but we could not directly find the cause of the problems. After placing a temperature tag in these locations, we saw that each night, the temperature was rising significantly." After tracking the source, the company discovered that the cooling system was being overtaxed when workers activated an ice machine in the area.

"The introduction of our employees with the system went quite easily," Loos says. "After some experiences with it, they already came back with new ideas in which the system could help them."

At present, the installation is limited to assets and IT equipment. In the future, however, Loos says he hopes to utilize RFID wristbands for patients. "We'd like to use the system for patient safety and monitoring," he states, "especially for [monitoring the movement of] confused patients, and children or babies that stay in our hospital."

"Once you solve one problem, you can then move on to the next one," says Joel Cook, AeroScout's director of health-care solutions marketing. The software can be expanded to include a variety of tracking or sensor features, Cook says, including temperature or humidity monitoring if humidity sensors were integrated into the system.

Jan Yperman Hospital, located near the city of Bruges, employs 100 doctors and 1,000 additional workers. It admits 15,000 patients annually, and treats 18,000 others as day patients. The 550-bed hospital is currently focusing its wireless tracking efforts on one of its multiple buildings. For its high-risk patients, the facility is employing approximately 400 AeroScout RFID tags that come with call buttons workers can press in the event of an emergency. The tags are used by patients who might become disoriented, such as those suffering from Alzheimer's, says Christophe Mouton, the hospital's director of administration, finance, ICT and technical service.

Systems integrator Telindus installed 125 exciters at exit locations throughout the building. The exciters awaken the patient tags, which transmit a signal at a preset rate when not in motion, more frequently when moving, and immediately upon receiving a 125 kHz wake-up signal from an exciter. If the tag receives an exciter's signal, it transmits its own unique ID number, as well as the exciter's ID number, to the Wi-Fi nodes. That data is then sent to the MobileView software, which issues an alert indicating a particular patient has entered a specific unauthorized area.

In addition to monitoring patients, Haithcox says, the hospital is also tracking approximately 1,000 pieces of equipment, including pumps, wheelchairs and beds.

Previously, in February 2008, the hospital installed 40 AeroScout 2.4 GHz RFID tags with temperature sensors inside refrigerators that chill blood bags and lab specimens. The refrigerators were a concern, Cook explains, because if one of their doors are left open, the temperature inside the unit can rise above a safe level. The tags transmit the refrigerators' interior temperature to nearby Wi-Fi nodes, which send that data to AeroScout's MobileView software. If the cooling unit's temperature exceeds or falls below a set threshold, MobileView can trigger an alert to the hospital staff.

Although the MobileView system thus far stands alone, Haithcox says it will eventually be integrated into the hospital's ERP system. This will enable staff members to follow a patient through the hospital, from admission to discharge, thereby tracking how long that individual waited in any particular location, such as imaging.

To date, Mouton says, "asset tracking is very effective, and accuracy is more than enough. Our employees—technical department, nurses, doctors—are very enthusiastic."

Mouton predicts the hospital will receive a return on its investment in one to two years, based on fewer man-hours spent searching for assets, and reduced wastage by preventing refrigerated products from being stored at improper temperatures. He also expects to see greater patient safety by tracking the locations of some patients. The hospital, he says, intends to purchase additional patient and asset tags in the future as it expands the system.