University Research Team Studies RadarFind RTLS at Southeastern Regional Medical Center
By RadarFind | August 13, 2009
To better understand the effect a fully deployed RTLS has on hospitals, a research team from Indiana University – Purdue University at Indianapolis visited Southeastern Regional Medical Center on July 21 to study a healthcare RTLS in use. The student team, led by Associate Professor Barbara Christe, investigated how RTLS improves hospital efficiency and patient outcomes. A leader in the healthcare RFID field, Christe received national recognition in 2008 for her research into safe uses of RFID in clinical environments.
Barbara Christe and her research team from IUPUI interview an SRMC nurse using RadarFind.
At SRMC, Christe and her team interviewed hospital administrators and staff about the benefits of using the RadarFind RTLS throughout the hospital. They discovered a range of improvements including:
- Improved quality of patient care (dramatically less time searching/more nursing time spent with patients)
- Significantly reduced stress levels and workload on clinical staff and BMETs
- Potential process improvements in multiple departments, including central sterile and infection control
- Preventative maintenance completion rates close to 100% on tagged equipment
- Innovative service contract negotiations, leveraging asset tracking
Central to the results realized at SRMC are RadarFind’s three-position status tags that capture historical data on the entire clinical equipment duty cycle of clean/available, in-use with patient, and dirty/needs cleaning. This data can be used to leverage service contracts, and augment infection control processes to further improve patient safety.
Impressed by what they found, Christe and her team intend to publish their full findings in a peer-reviewed journal in the near future.
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WakeMed Cary Experiences Success with RadarFind RTLS
By RadarFind | July 14, 2009
Mary Schilder, WakeMed Health & Hospitals
When WakeMed Cary decided to implement RadarFind RTLS, they knew they needed a plan for applying the new tools. “You really have to have a good business case up front to meet the business needs and priorities,” said Mary Schilder, director of information systems consulting for WakeMed Health & Hospitals.
Initially, WakeMed Cary started tracking only infusion pumps in order to get a feel for the system. “Once you put in the readers and data collectors, the system can track anything you want, but you have to be able to use the data to make business decisions,” Schilder explained.
RadarFind RTLS provides a significant business intelligence tool with the unique three-position status switch on the RadarFind RTLS tags. “RadarFind will contribute to improved patient care by…creating a better method for equipment utilization,” said Schilder. By showing if a device is clean, in-use or needs cleaning, nurses don’t waste time tracking down unavailable equipment and administrators obtain important utilization data which leads to better inventory and purchasing decisions.
Schilder visited Wayne Memorial Hospital in Goldsboro, NC and discovered how they saved $300,000+ and experienced operational efficiency improvements with RadarFind. “We found that the technology was quickly integrated into the hospital workflow process,” commented Schilder. She anticipates similar benefits for WakeMed Cary. “The system will…help us meet Joint Commission standards by creating an easy way to track items needing preventive maintenance so they can be removed from the units.”
In the future, WakeMed Cary expects to expand on their success with the RadarFind technology by implementing a patient tracking system which runs on the same platform as the asset tracking system. According to Schilder, “[The RadarFind technology] could be extremely beneficial to the continued improvement of patient care and patient safety at WakeMed Cary.”
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Virginia Hospital to Deploy RadarFind
By RadarFind | December 5, 2008
Mary Washington Hospital has selected the RadarFind RTLS for tracking the location and status of its mobile medical equipment, thereby managing costs to save money on equipment purchases, improve patient care and enhance the efficiency of hospital operations. Read the rest of this entry »
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RadarFind CMO to Speak at NCBA Symposium
By RadarFind | November 21, 2008
As part of the NC Biomedical Association Symposium, Dr. Vincent Carrasco, Chief Medical Officer for RadarFind Corporation, will be presenting two sessions on RFID and RTLS and their applications for biomedical and clinical engineering.
Managing Equipment with RFID and RTLS (Real Time Location Systems)
A comprehensive overview of the distinctions between active RFID and RTLS and how these technologies are emerging to significantly benefit clinical engineering processes.
Monday Dec. 1, 1:00PM – 4:30PM
Integration and Implementation is Not a One-Way Street
With Philip Knecht, Senior BMET, Southeastern Regional Medical Center, Lumberton, N.C.
Learn how Southeastern Regional Medical Center is utilizing a Real Time Location System (RTLS) to improve clinical efficiency and reduce costs by easily installing an asset tracking system, then integrating the real-time equipment location and status information with computerized maintenance management software.
Tuesday Dec. 2, 1:30PM – 4:30PM
Dr. Carrasco is a former tenured professor of surgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine with 25+ years of health care experience, including working as an academic educator, research scientist, surgeon and hospital clinic administrator. He has presented educational sessions for A.A.M.I., the Virginia Biomedical Association and the Society for Health Systems.
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RadarFind Wins Technology Award
By RadarFind | November 18, 2008
The North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA) has awarded RadarFind “Most Innovative Use of Technology”. Read the rest of this entry »
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Hospital Executive Touts RadarFind Benefits at RTLS Conference
By RadarFind | October 21, 2008
Wayne Memorial Hospital Operations VP Tom Bradshaw will present during the upcoming Active RFID, RTLS & Sensor Networks conference on November 5 in Dallas, Texas. Read the rest of this entry »
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RadarFind CMO is VBA Keynote Speaker
By RadarFind | August 27, 2008
Dr. Vincent Carrasco will deliver the keynote address during the upcoming Virginia Biomedical Association annual meeting. Read the rest of this entry »
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Response to JAMA article on RFID
By RadarFind | July 3, 2008
The RFID study mentioned in JAMA does not apply to the RTLS technology deployed by RadarFind.
The recent study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association covered the likely scenario of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) readers causing anomalous behavior in electronic critical care equipment, when those devices were brought within close range of the RFID readers. This can happen because of the high energy levels and the frequencies used by some RFID systems that can in fact interfere with medical equipment in hospital environments.
The RFID study mentioned in the JAMA report does not apply to the Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) technology deployed by RadarFind.
The RadarFind system elements use a tiny fraction of the power levels utilized in the JAMA study – so small that they cannot create enough interfering energy to make a nearby electronic device malfunction. The radio frequency where RadarFind’s system operates also does not interfere with electronic medical equipment.
The study reported by JAMA used high-powered, RFID readers within the 868 MHz frequency with passive RFID tags. For passive RFID systems (as mentioned previously), you need a very powerful reader to energize/read the tags. To compare this to the RadarFind system, the power level for RadarFind readers is about 20,000 times less than the readers that were used in the study. High-energy readers are not required with the RadarFind system since its tags have their own power source (a battery). We are not surprised that interference occurred at such a high power level with the passive RFID system observed in this study.
We are also not surprised that the low-powered active RFID tags operating in the 125 kHz frequency band caused interference with electronic medical devices as cited in the JAMA study. The RadarFind system operates in the 900 MHz frequency band where there is no interference with medical devices. Health care practitioners and RF system engineers designed the RadarFind system to work within a frequency (902 MHz to 928 MHz) specifically so that there would be no interference with hospital equipment.
Additional information regarding the differences between RFID and RTLS technology is available from RadarFind. Please feel free to contact us: info@radarfind.com for further clarification or if you have any other questions regarding this study.
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WakeMed & RadarFind Announce R&D Partnership
By RadarFind | April 9, 2008
WakeMed Health & Hospitals, a leading health care system in North Carolina’s Triangle has announced a partnership with RadarFind, a health care technology company offering a unique, patented Real Time Location System (RTLS) that uses a platform technology for tracking medical equipment and patients.
“WakeMed is committed to fostering technology which will continue to raise the standard of excellence for health care both within our system and beyond. Initially, RadarFind will implement its medical equipment tracking technology at
In addition to the technological focus of the partnership, WakeMed will be using the RadarFind RTLS to track their inventory of medical equipment, enhance patient care by efficiently locating medical equipment, reduce costs on equipment purchases and maintenance, and develop best practices for infection control.
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RadarFind CTO Podcast on Health Care Blog
By RadarFind | March 12, 2008
Stephen Jackson, CTO for RadarFind, was interviewed at the HIMSS conference. During the interview, conducted by Matthew Holt, Steve discussed how and why WiFi-based systems don’t seem to work as well as advertised, and infrared along with other technologies that need new networks are too expensive for most hospitals. This information-rich podcast is posted at thehealthcareblog.com.
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