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Mobile RFID Asset Tracking in the Healthcare Industry
Hospitals throughout the world are challenged with how to reduce daily errors that result not only in harm to their financials, but also to their patients. According to the Institute of Medicine, medication errors cause sickness, injury, or death to at least 1.5 million patients in the U.S. and cost about $3.5 billion per year.
The problem is growing rapidly, due in part to nursing shortages, which are blamed for almost 25% of unanticipated events in hospitals that result in injury, death, or permanent loss of function. How can errors be reduced as understaffing continues and nurses are required to treat more patients in less time?
Mobile RFID asset tracking is a promising solution. American Barcode and RFID offers enterprise mobility solutions that place the necessary tools for healthcare workers literally in the palms of their hands. Mobile RFID equipment not only reduces errors, but also significantly improves productivity by eliminating the error-prone, paper-and-pen based processes. With wireless, handheld mobile computers, healthcare professionals can connect to the hospital's computer network anywhere, anytime. Consequently, hospitals can improve accuracy and efficiency of routine tasks, including, but not limited to:
Medication Administration
Using a mobile computer with bar code scanning and/or RFID capability, a nurse can scan his or her own ID card, a patient's wristband, and medication in seconds, ensuring that the right patient receives the correct medication and dosage at the right time and through the right means. In addition, each patient’s record is updated in real time, thereby allowing the next shift to always see medication that was administered by the prior shift. The danger of a patient receiving a duplicate dose of medication at shift change due to a lag time in manual data entry is eliminated.
Patient Monitoring
Ordinarily, nurses must be physically located at a centralized nursing station in order to view patient vital signs and the status of medical equipment in the patient’s room. Should a piece of equipment need to be adjusted, a nurse would need to physically go to the patient's room to do so. With a wireless mobile computer, however, a nurse would have the ability to check patient vital signs and remotely adjust equipment, all while moving throughout the hospital as needed. Mobility improves productivity and allows nurses to respond very quickly in the event of an emergency.
Specimen Collection
Without mobility, nurses and laboratory technicians must locate and check paperwork to determine what tests have been ordered, verify patient identity through a visual check of the patient wristband, and then manually label the patient specimen. Any error in any of these steps can have disastrous results. If, on the other hand, handheld RFID equipment is used, patient safety in the specimen collection process is completely protected. Medical staff can feel confident that, even when pressed for time, the right specimen is collected from the right patient at the right time and placed in the right container.
Asset Management
Without mobile RFID asset tracking, the real-time location of equipment moving throughout the hospital is often unknown. In a healthcare environment, where life-threatening emergencies occur daily, the ability to find equipment when needed is critical. Traditional manual processes used to track equipment are time consuming and expensive. By contrast, modern asset tracking that employs RFID tags on all equipment and RFID readers throughout the facility can automatically locate equipment as it moves around the hospital. In addition to improving the productivity of the medical staff, the ability to track the exact location of medical equipment also improves the productivity and quality of those who maintain the equipment. Biomedical engineers can locate equipment scheduled for maintenance quickly and easily, ensuring timely and efficient maintenance.
With American Barcode and RFID's enterprise mobility solutions, hospitals can eliminate manual processes and improve the productivity of often overworked staff, thus reducing the possibility of errors. More can be accomplished in less time and with greater accuracy, which lowers potential risk and liability while increasing the confidence of healthcare workers who have long shifts. While the benefits of mobile RFID asset tracking largely pertain to the hospitals and their staff, the benefit to the patient is the most notable: with the power of mobility, patients receive safer and more personalized care from a highly efficient medical staff.
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