PeaceHealth, a health-care provider that operates six hospitals in the states of Alaska, Washington and Oregon, has installed a hybrid system using infrared technology and RFID provided by Versus Technology, to help it track patients in the emergency section of its newly constructed hospital, the Sacred Heart Medical Center, River Bend, located in Springfield, Ore. The new hospital, which receives approximately 160 visits in its emergency room daily, provides RFID-enabled badges to its emergency patients in order to track them throughout the facility. Some staff members also wear similar badges to allow the hospital to track their location, and when they are treating which patients.
PeaceHealth had installed the same system in 2006 at its Sacred Heart Medical Center, University District, located in Eugene, Ore., and in 2007 at St. Joseph’s Hospital, in Bellingham, Wash. The health-care group also intends to deploy the technology in at least one more of its six hospitals.
At Sacred Heart, River Bend, patients can be treated at a variety of locations, often moving to a separate section of the hospital for diagnostics, to have blood drawn and to have X-rays, MRIs or CAT scans performed. Tracking patients without an automated system would have been time-consuming for the hospital’s emergency staff, and would have resulted in delays in care. Without an automated system, employees would have had to manually input data regarding a patient’s status, or walk through the facility’s departments to locate a specific individual. PeaceHealth wanted a tracking system for its new hospital that would enable workers to know not only what care a particular patient has received in real time, but also which nurse or physician is assigned to that individual. With the system, the staff can see which procedures that patient receives, who provides them, and which procedures have already been completed.
“It’s been a big value-added piece for nurses, knowing where the patient is, when tests have been administered and when they’re back,” says Ginger Banks, PeaceHealth’s lead analyst for the Oregon region’s tracking technology team.
With the Versus VISion system, when a patient arrives at Sacred Heart, River Bend, a VISion ID badge is attached to his or her clothing and remains with that patient the entire time he or she is being treated in the emergency department. The badge has two battery-powered chips—one for RFID, the other for infrared transmissions. Both chips transmit a unique ID number linked to patient-related data in the back-end system.
The infrared chip enables the badge to be located within about 2 feet, while the RFID chip, which transmits at 433 MHz using a proprietary air-interface protocol, provides a signal with a broad read range—up to 40 feet—that (unlike infrared) can penetrate walls. With the two transmissions, the badge can combine that long read range with infrared location precision that would require additional RFID antennas to accomplish alone. According to Banks, approximately 2,600 infrared and RFID interrogators, installed throughout the 1.2 million-square-foot hospital, capture the badge transmissions, thereby enabling the system to know the patient’s location.
Sensors receive transmissions from the badges every three seconds, then transmit that ID number to the back-end server via a wired connection. The Versus software allows the ID number associated with that badge to link to patient info stored in the back-end system. Patient-related data, including the length of an individual’s stay in any given department, is then displayed on 18 monitors known as electronic bulletin boards. The information, Banks explains, appears in the form of numeric codes that are understood by the staff but that would have little meaning to hospital visitors, thereby ensuring the privacy of the patients whose data is listed on the board.
The software also has preset rules enabling it to automatically assign nurses and physicians to specific patients based on their location and the particular procedures they have undergone. Because 100 staff members also wear RFID badges, the system can determine when a patient receives care, as well as from whom and for how long. The system automatically assigns nurses and physicians to a patient, based on how long the staff badges remain in a room. When a nurse walks into the room and remains for 30 seconds, his or her name is linked with the patient’s information. The same rule applies to the physician assignment.
The location, patient status and attending physician or nurse is then displayed on the electronic bulletin boards, as well as at individual workstations.
The infrared signal does not transmit signals as far as RFID does, Banks says, while IR provides better location information by pinpointing the tag’s location within two feet. If a badge remains unmoving for a length of time, she adds, the RFID chip transmits its ID number for 500 minutes before switching to dormant mode. In this way, the tag can conserve battery power in the event that a person has forgotten the tag or is no longer using it. By allowing transmission for 500 minutes after the tag becomes stationary, however, a patient can put the badge down (while having a procedure done, for instance) or remain in one location for hours while continuing to transmit the badge’s location.
According to Banks, there have been some cases in which patients forgot to remove the badges and carried them home, requiring the hospital to replace them. “We do have some loss from that,” she says, though such occurrences are rare.
Eventually, Banks says, the River Bend facility intends to install interrogators at its anesthesia and surgical rooms so patients and members of the medical staff can be tracked through procedures at these locations. The system will provide data the hospital can use to reduce waits and ensure patients receive the care they require.