Hospital chooses tracking system

FREDERICKSBURG — Mary Washington Hospital has chosen the RadarFind Real Time Location System for tracking the location and status of its mobile medical equipment. This has been done in order to save money on equipment purchases, improve patient care and enhance the efficiency of hospital operations.

Andy Holden, director of biomedical services for Mary Washington Hospital, stated, “the RadarFind system will have a significant impact on Mary Washington Hospital’s mission to improve the health status of all people within our community. The data gathered by the system will be leveraged in a number of ways to help improve our hospital’s services.”

According to a 2008 industry study, clinical engineers performing regular preventive maintenance on medical devices, such as infusion pumps, cannot find between 20 to 25 percent of those devices. Nurses also spend excessive time searching for equipment, taking time away from patient care.

The hospital chose a Real Time Location System because it will automate these and other processes to reduce the workload on hospital staff. For patients, health care can be significantly improved. For hospital management, cost and risk are reduced and additional revenue can be generated.

Holden added, “The RadarFind system is setting the standard for real time locating in hospitals, with non-disruptive installation, proven return-on-investment, scalability, detailed data and reports and superior customer service.”

Barbara Capone, RadarFind’s Vice President of Marketing, stated, “RadarFind is designed for the least computer-savvy people at a hospital. It’s very easy to use.”

The RadarFind RTLS technology features an asset tag that alerts staff to the device’s status: available, in-use or needs cleaning/sterilization. The status tag also provides accurate equipment utilization information to help hospitals budget for new equipment expenditures, an important asset these days.

This practice helped Wayne Memorial Hospital of Goldsboro, N.C., to save more than $400,000 less than a year after implementing the RadarFind RTLS.

Holden is looking forward to using the RadarFind system to track telemetry devices that wirelessly monitor vital signs, according to a press release. Hospitals lose track of a significant number of these small devices each year, which can translate into lost funds. Mary Washington Hospital will use the RadarFind asset location system to help stop those losses.

There is no interference with existing WiFi networks or other hospital equipment, and the system requires minimal involvement from a hospital’s information technology department. As the system tracks devices, it reports time-stamped location history. This information can be used by a hospital as part of their infection control surveillance system. Equipment that has come into contact with specific patients, especially those who have contracted or are colonized with antibiotic-resistant organisms, can be identified.

The data from the status portion of the tag can be also used to monitor whether a device passes through the appropriate decontamination process before it is assigned to another patient.

The new Stafford Hospital Center has also been looking into purchasing a RadarFind system, but has not yet signed a contract for it.

“With the RadarFind system, causal relationships between contaminated medical devices and known infected or colonized patients can be more easily determined. With this new tool in our infection control arsenal, we can take additional proactive measures to reduce hospital-acquired infections at our medical center,” said Sam Miller, support services vice president for Mary Washington Hospital.

– Megan Sweeney from press release