How Is RFID Being Used in Hospital Operating Rooms?

Can you please provide some examples?

—Kumar

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Kumar,

Hospitals are utilizing RFID technologies in a variety of ways in their operating rooms. The University of California, San Diego Medical Center uses an active RFID real-time location system to properly manage its perioperative services, which has improved its patient-flow and OR utilization rates (see Using RTLS to Overcome Business-Management Challenges in Today's Operating Room). Adventist Health White Memorial also uses an RFID system to improve OR turnaround times (see Improving Operating Room Turnover Times With RFID), as does Bon Secours Richmond (see Bon Secours Richmond Finds RFID Saves $2 Million Annually).

West Virginia University Ruby Memorial Hospital, a 500-plus-bed facility with a Level 1 trauma center designation, implemented RFID to automate the tracking of consumables in its OR (see A Healthy Partnership Solves Hospital Problems). BJC Healthcare has adopted RFID cabinets to track surgical devices (see BJC Healthcare Adopts RFID Cabinets to Track Surgical Devices).

The University of Tennessee Medical Center's OR employs an RFID system to automatically identify discarded packaging of supplies in order to document which items were used for each patient's procedure, thereby improving its billing practices (see University of Tennessee Medical Center OR Monitors Supplies, Safety Via Trash Bins). And many hospitals have deployed RFID to ensure that surgical sponges are not left inside patients accidentally (see ORLocate RFID-enabled System for Surgical Sponges and Instruments Gets FDA Clearance).

I hope the above articles will help you understand the many ways in which RFID can be used to improve operating room efficiencies and patient safety.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal