Mary Washington Hospital of Fredericksburg, Va., which deployed RadarFind last year, requested the sensor-driven Sentry AV as a means of alerting staff when telemetry units were headed towards laundry or exit areas. The hospital also provided valuable input when RadarFind developed the industry’s first RTLS tag designed for modular cardiac telemetry devices. 

“RadarFind’s hospital-centric approach to asset tracking was a key factor in our decision to use their system,” said Andy Holden, director of biomedical services for Mary Washington Hospital. “They have continued to show their commitment to engineering a system purposely designed for hospitals as they responded to our request for tags to fit cardiac telemetry devices and now, an alarm capability through Sentry AV. This security component increases the system’s effectiveness to reduce waste, help maintain costs and improve the efficiency of hospital processes.” 

Cardiac telemetry devices monitor a patient’s heart rate and transmit that information, usually to a nurse’s station. The wearable units are small and portable (about the size of a deck of cards), so patients can leave their beds and walk around or be transported by stretcher while still being monitored by trained patient care staff. However, due to their size, expensive telemetry devices (average price $3,000) are often misplaced or rolled up in bed linens, mistakenly laundered and destroyed, costing hospitals thousands of dollars. 

Using Sentry AV, Mary Washington can set an alarm to alert staff via e-mail, pager, or a RadarFind user computer screen, and an audible and visible alert if tagged devices such as telemetry units approach a laundry facility, an exit, or any other exclusion zone, preventing damage or theft of the unit. Sentry AV may also be used in conjunction with RadarFind’s temperature tracking applications, triggering an alarm if temperatures in a monitored refrigerator or freezer vary outside a pre-determined range. This application protects temperature-sensitive medications and laboratory samples, and helps hospitals comply with Joint Commission standards. 

“Sentry AV is another step towards supporting the ‘location and status aware’ hospital,” said Michael Nelson, president of RadarFind. “Our wireless sensor network and deterministic tag technology augment operational processes and improve cost-control and patient care well beyond standard RTLS product offerings. The addition of a sensor alarm will further enhance the system’s ability to help hospitals manage resource demands.” 

The new sensor alarm functions also show potential for future applications for patient safety. Patient elopement is a concern for many hospitals and as patient tracking applications grow increasingly sophisticated, Sentry AV can be used to alert hospital staff when patients enter or exit designated areas. RadarFind’s integration with various patient flow solutions from parent company TeleTracking Technologies will further streamline hospital operational efficiency. 

Sentry AV works with all current version RadarFind tracking tags, including the industry’s only status tag that features a three-state, color-coded status switch to mark equipment as available (green), in-use (yellow) or needs cleaning/decontamination (red). Valuable utilization reports are generated by the RadarFind system as a result of using this status tag.