- RFiD Discovery has built a solution aimed at solving a key challenge in hospitals around discharging patients more quickly and ensuring the emptied bed is prepared for the next patient.
- The solution is intended to be low cost, and seamless, while it could also be a first step into a wider RFID patient management solution.
While some real-time locating system- (RTLS) and RFID-based technologies are aimed at wide scale adoption across a hospital to track patients, staff or assets, those solutions can be costly and require significant infrastructure.
Technology company RFiD Discovery has taken a different approach by releasing what it calls a new low-cost, easy-to-deploy solution to target one key challenge: patient discharge. Its Patient Discharge Management system aims to make the task of releasing a patient more efficient, while also automating bed management processes, by notifying the staff when each new bed is ready for cleaning.
Too often the process of getting patients properly released, and a room prepared for reuse can be slow, explained Simon Dawkins, RFiD Discovery’s lead RFID consultant for Healthcare. There are usually manual efforts required to prepare patients, collect the proper paperwork or digital records, and (once they leave) alert staff that a room is empty.
RFID-based System
For many hospitals the process of identifying an empty bed and getting it ready for the next patient, when busy, takes from 20 minutes to four hours.
RFiD Discovery wanted a solution that would be intuitive and easy to integrate into existing hospital systems, according to Dawkins. The resulting system leverages passive UHF RFID-enabled wristbands and a Smart Drop Reader (that could be deployed at the front desk of a hospital or unit), as well as a printer to print new patient wristbands.
The identity and related healthcare and bed assignment data for each patient can be captured automatically during discharge, as a removed wristband is deposited into the reader box. This action reduces wait times for the patient and automatically updating the bed status as ready for cleaning and re-use.
How it Works
When a new patient is admitted, they are issued a wristband with their name and ID information printed on it, similarly to standard wristbands. RFiD Discovery’s band’s label is printed by a SATO RFID printer and encoded with a unique ID that links to that patient in the company’s software. The RFID data can be integrated with a hospital’s existing patient management system and that patient’s room or bed number is included for proper bed management.
The patient wears the wristband in the same way printed wristbands have been used for decades.
Typically, the RFID tag is not read again until the patient is released. When they are discharged, they go to the front desk where any necessary paperwork is provided to them, and the wristband is removed from their wrist and placed in the Smart Drop Reader.
An RFID reader antenna built into the smart drop receptacle captures the tag ID, forwards that data to the software and updates their status as released. At the same time, the system updates the bed management system and notifies cleaning staff via text message or email.
“This automation removes the need for manual data entry, ensuring that bed availability information is always up to date,” said Dawkins.
Improving Bed Management Rates
The Patient Discharge Management system can drastically reduce the time needed to update bed statuses, Dawkins said, which he argues can enhance operational efficiency, and provide accurate data for better decision-making.
It also can streamline discharging for the patient and improve bed turnover times by making bed management system updates over 90 percent faster than traditional systems.
“We’ve removed the need for phone calls assigning cleaners,” with the task of preparing a specific bed, stated Dawkins.
No Change to Processes for Staff Members
For hospital employees, the only new task is removing the wristband and dropping it into the reader device that is connected to the RFiD Discovery software. In that way Dawkins said, “we’ve taken something that could be quite complex and made it seamless, using a very low-cost tag.”
That’s important, said Dawkins, as the point of the solution is to free up the time nurses and healthcare assistants spend on administrative tasks. The goal instead, he said, is to allow these clinicians to focus on the people they are there to care for.
One study from the UK’s National Library of Medicine found such healthcare providers on average only spend 40 percent of their time with patients and 60 percent of their time doing other tasks.
Providing a Portfolio of Solutions
RFiD Discovery already offers a wide range of location tracking solutions— including medical device and patient flow tracking, inventory management, infant security, staff safety and automated temperature monitoring—to help hospitals cut costs, increase efficiency and improve patient care.
For those adopting the patient discharge solution, RFiD Discovery provides fixed reader portals at facility exits. This is in case a step was missed in the discharge process, and the patient is leaving with their wristband, an alert can be sent that a wristband tag was detected leaving the site.
The technology could be used at other sites such as the emergency room to detect when a patient arrives, and if they leave before they are seen.
RFiD Discovery has deployed its technology for tracking movement of patients in and out of specific departments as well. For instance, one European hospital uses the solution in its radiology department to ensure that the patient has completed the necessary processes such as dye injections, before their scan is conducted.
Growing with the Hospital
Additionally, the technology can track the movement of the patient through the steps of their imaging or other screening so that an automatic alert can be sent to family or friends awaiting the patient.
For most hospitals, the benefits come from adoption of one application first, such as patient discharge.
“You don’t need necessarily the entire solution for patient management all the way through the process, with readers all over the place—we are unique in the sense that our software grows with hospitals,” Dawkins said.
The system is designed to be low cost and easy to deploy, so that a large investment isn’t necessary. In that way hospitals can more easily begin using RFID for patient flow management, based simply on when they leave.