RFID in Health Care 2015

03 Dec, 2015 2:15 pm

Managing Medical Device Loan Kits via RFID

In Australia and New Zealand, the orthopedic implant industry is successfully using RFID to manage loan-kit, or short-term consignment, of medical devices. Initially installed by medical device companies, the project was ultimately extended to include hospitals. The use of RFID prevents the shipment of incomplete kits or expired items to hospitals and increases a manufacturer’s ability to manage urgent shipment requests. Learn how the technology creates a clear record of chain of custody, providing complete, accurate and transparent data, and how it reduces disputes surrounding item usage between suppliers and hospitals.

03 Dec, 2015 12:45 pm

Lunch Break

03 Dec, 2015 12:00 pm

Using RFID in the Medical Device Supply Chain to Overcome Inefficiencies

03 Dec, 2015 8:30 am

Coffee in Exhibit Area

03 Dec, 2015 9:00 am

Opening Remarks

03 Dec, 2015 9:15 am

RFID’s Role in an Evolving Health-Care System

Bold new approaches are needed to help health care solve the fundamental business challenges of improving the cost-effectiveness of quality care. A new vision that encompasses investment in RFID technology and its role in providing critical insights is the first step in pursuit of this goal. This vision connects operational and utilization data via process and workflow automation to eliminate waste, reduce variability and prepare an organization for managing the complexities of episodic cost. While hospitals have long used technology such as RFID to address local tasks such as asset and inventory management, the time has come to move to a broader application of RFID across major segments and geographies to reduce the total cost of care and cope with new value-based models. Learn how the RFID strategies deployed by many providers and manufacturers have yielded strong results while establishing the foundation for the larger role RFID will play in health care.

03 Dec, 2015 10:00 am

RFID Provides Mission-Critical Monitoring for Health-Care Research

Northwestern University’s Center for Comparative Medicine (CCM) is a service and teaching unit that supports all animal use in research, testing and education. With a large population of animals and $300 million in ongoing biomedical research projects, CCM needed a way to ensure that the animals were receiving the best possible care, while also protecting the integrity of the research being conducted. CCM is currently installing radio frequency identification technology within its facility. To date, more than 20 animal rooms have been RFID-enabled with more than 12,000 tagged animal cages. The deployment is continuing with the goal of enabling 145 animal rooms with RFID. With this planned system, CCM expects to track the locations of animal cages throughout its facility, thus eliminating the error-prone manual labor associated with bar-code censuses, and increasing census accuracy. This presentation will outline the expected benefits of decreased staff requirements, a lowered risk of contamination, improved animal welfare and safeguarded funding, establishing a new standard of animal care at research facilities.

03 Dec, 2015 10:45 am

Networking Break

03 Dec, 2015 11:15 am

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Improves Supply Chain With RFID

As a dedicated cancer center with more than 28 operating rooms, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center faces challenges associated with high-volume oncology surgery. MSKCC chose an RFID-enabled solution that is providing faster and more accurate inventory tracking and recording. The system is providing process efficiencies and increased accuracy from the conversion of manual processes to a fully automated system of replenishment, tracking and analysis of inventory. Learn how the hospital has combined RFID, kanban and bar-code solutions to transform the way in which employees manage inventory and clinical supplies documentation.

03 Dec, 2015 12:00 pm

OR Monitors Supplies, Safety Via RFID

The University of Tennessee (UT) Medical Center is expanding its use of a radio frequency identification system for monitoring equipment trays and consumables within all of its 36 operating rooms. Five of the hospital’s ORs are already employing the technology to track every item used for each surgery, based on a reading of the RFID tag on that item’s wrapper as the tagged packaging is thrown into a trash bin. The UT Medical Center is also considering the use of fixed and handheld readers to perform inventory counts of medical supplies stored on shelves within its operating rooms, and to record which surgical supplies are being used on each patient. Learn how the RFID system is enabling the staff to leave off items that are never utilized for specific procedures, thereby reducing the number of times that an asset is taken out of storage and returned.

03 Dec, 2015 12:45 pm

Lunch Break

03 Dec, 2015 2:15 pm

RFID in Health Care Panel

Health-care facilities are faced with many choices when it comes to implementing an RFID asset-tracking system, including passive high-frequency (HF) and ultrahigh-frequency (UHF), active 455 MHz, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, ultra-wideband (UWB) and ultrasound technologies. In this session, leading technology experts will discuss some of the key issues that health-care providers need to understand when making technology choices.

03 Dec, 2015 3:00 pm

RFID RTLS Increases Benefits at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

As part of an ongoing initiative, the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has deployed a real-time location system infrastructure designed to meet the needs of current use cases (asset management, temperature monitoring, blood bank supply monitoring, patient flow, staff duress, staff assistance nurse call, queue management and more), as well as future uses, to include extended patient workflow in the operating room, in the emergency department and across the enterprise. The RTLS infrastructure is deployed in all clinical areas of the fully integrated academic medical facility, along with all ancillary support function areas that are part of the patient-flow process. This accounts for approximately 1,000 beds and 4 million square feet of RTLS coverage, in more than eight multistory buildings on the main campus. Learn how the firm has continued to execute against this initiative, and how the use of RTLS technology has moved well beyond tracking mobile medical assets.

03 Dec, 2015 3:45 pm

Networking Break

03 Dec, 2015 4:15 pm

Calculating the Return on Investment from a Real-Time Location System

An RFID-based real-time location system increases asset utilization rates and cuts expenditures on replacement and rental equipment. In this session, we explain how RFID Journal’s RTLS ROI Calculator estimates that return on investment based on expected improvements in asset utilization rate. The session also covers some of the other soft benefits that can be achieved with an RTLS.

03 Dec, 2015 5:00 pm

Conference Concludes

03 Dec, 2015 3:00 pm

The Benefits of Tracking Implants via RFID

Stryker Orthopaedics uses RFID to manage medical device implants, including artificial hips and knees, as they travel to 38 regional distribution centers and then to and from hospitals. St. Elizabeth Medical Center is tracking stents, pacemakers and other devices at its cardiology lab with passive UHF RFID. Learn how Stryker cut device kit check-in times by 60 percent and reduced overtime pay, and how St. Elizabeth used RFID to enable $1.3 million in savings from bulk device purchases.

03 Dec, 2015 11:15 am

Fujitsu America: RFID for Medical Device Management