RF Technologies, a provider of asset- and patient-tracking systems for health-care applications, has announced a new active RFID system designed not to track, but to find assets. Called the Seeker, it consists of a handheld interrogator that looks for specific tags and lets users know, through a visual indicator on the handheld, when they are getting closer or further away. While it is being read, the tag also emits an audible signal. It’s RFID’s version of Marco Polo, the child’s swimming-pool game in which a one player swims around with eyes closed, calling out “Marco” and gauging other players’ locations by listening for each response of “Polo.”
RF Technologies is marketing the Seeker to users who need a means of locating mobile assets but are unable to install the network of fixed-position readers and choke points required for a real-time location system, either due to budgetary limitations or because they operate in an environment (such as an outdoor area) that won’t support the physical infrastructure. While most of the company’s other products and services are geared toward health-care applications, the Seeker can be used by a wider circle of end users.
Aurora Health Care, a not-for-profit Wisconsin health-care provider and leaser of health-care equipment to hospitals and for home health care, participated in a pilot program utilizing the Seeker to locate air pumps, wheel chairs and other equipment leased to West Allis Memorial Hospital, outside Milwaukee. Aurora Health Care started the first phase of the pilot test last summer, but found that the Seeker was not providing accurate results.
“We were struggling with it,” says Patrick Lynch, Aurora Health Care’s information systems manager. “We’d do a walk-through and the Seeker would find a device, but in some cases it was on the floor above or below us.” Moreover, according to Mike Graves, supervisor of operations of the organization’s rental division, the Seeker’s read range was highly variable. “Sometimes,” he explains, “it would read from 5 feet away, and other times it wouldn’t read from as close as 3 or 4 inches from the tag.”
RF Technologies collected input from Lynch and Graves, and then reengineered the Seeker interrogator to make it more reliable and reduce the strength of the RF signal so it was less likely to read tags on assets sitting on different floors or in other rooms. In April, Aurora Health Care agreed to participate in a second phase of the pilot, at which time Lynch says the system “was working much more effectively.”
RF Technologies provided the Seeker system for the pilot project. The Seeker 433 MHz interrogator consists of an HP iPAQ hx4700 handheld PC with an RFID reader module plugged into its CompactFlash slot. The Seeker software, which runs on the handheld device, is used to poll all tags in its read range and maintain a database of all issued tags. The software also tells the user how far away a tagged asset is by measuring the strength of its signal.
The Seeker 433 MHz active tag has a visual indicator triggered when an interrogator reads it. This—along with the tag’s audible indicator—helps the operator locate a specific asset. The Seeker can be utilized either to scan for and generate a list of all tags within its read range—which RF Technologies says can extend up to 300 feet in unobstructed areas—or to seek out specific tags.
Lynch and Graves claim the Seeker could be most useful in tracking the highest-value items Aurora Health Care leases, such as infusion pumps worth thousands of dollars. They are also considering working with hospitals to which they lease equipment, to test an asset-tracking system utilizing a fixed infrastructure of readers, rather than mobile readers. This would enable them to monitor tagged assets constantly and could also be used by the hospitals for tracking other assets, or for tracking patients.
RF Technologies’ vice president of asset management, James Hermann, says his firm is currently developing such a platform. The new platform, called PinPoint, will utilize tags transmitting data to Wi-Fi access points and send data to a back-end system over a wireless LAN, which most hospitals already have in place. RF Technologies acquired the PinPoint RTLS tracking system when it purchased the assets of the system’s developer, also named PinPoint, which went bankrupt in 2001. At present, the company does not yet have a release date for the PinPoint platform.
The Seeker platform is available now and can be purchased through RF Technologies’ online catalog. The handheld computer with 433 MHz interrogator costs $2,895, and each tag costs $95. The company says it offers discounts on the tag for volume purchases.