Yilan Veterans Hospital takes the lead in introducing active RFID tags to make patient safety management zero mistakes
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[RFID病患管理]
Active tags can greatly improve the accuracy of RFID management, but due to the high cost, they are rarely used at this stage. Yilan Veterans Hospital thinks from the perspective of assisting human management, and takes the lead in the medical industry to monitor dementia patients with active tags, which greatly reduces the probability of patient safety crises.
Yilan Suao/Yuanshan Veterans Hospital (hereinafter referred to as Yilan Veterans Hospital) will notice the application of RFID, which was originally inspired by the use of RFID in emergency room patient management by Wanfang Hospital in the same industry. After observing the actual application status at that time, the vice president believed that RFID could indeed effectively control the patient’s status under the premise of humanized management. Since Yilan Veterans Hospital has been looking for a more effective patient management system for a long time, it began to evaluate the procurement of RFID equipment.
There are quite a number of elderly patients in the Yilan Veterans Hospital who have been recuperating for a long time. Many of them have symptoms of dementia and disability. They are prone to confusion and need to be looked after at any time. However, the medical staff in the hospital is limited and cannot provide one-to-one care. The automatic management of RFID can meet the needs of hospitals to improve patient safety and reduce the workload of medical staff.
Active tags allow 100% tracking monitoring rate
Unlike most hospitals that use passive tags, the RFID patient management system introduced by Yilan Yuanshan Veterans Hospital two years ago uses active tags, which can be said to be pioneer. Speaking of why it chooses the more expensive active label, Yu Xizheng, the vice president of Yilan Veterans Hospital, said that the hospital also considered the cost at the earliest, hoping to use passive labeling, but after actual evaluation, it was found that active labeling meets their management needs.
As we all know, passive tags have been widely used in medicine management and patient management in hospitals. However, due to the short reading distance, the tags are easily shielded, and the ideal reading angle is not easy to grasp, etc., the reading rate is difficult to reach 100%. Vice President Yu Xizheng believes that for storage or drug management, a few reading errors may be accepted, but for management systems that are closely related to patient safety, no errors can be tolerated. “Patients who need to rely on RFID to monitor in the hospital are not able to manage themselves, but they have the ability to move. They may accidentally enter the danger zone and cause accidents at any time. If the sensitivity of the reader is not enough, the safety of the patients cannot be ensured.” Say.
The built-in battery of the active tag is suitable for patients to wear and use for a long time, and is not easy to be interfered by the outside world during sensing. In addition, the sensing distance can also be set to 3~200 meters according to requirements, which is very flexible. Vice President Yu Xizheng said that in foreign countries, active tags are mostly used to manage high-value items, or to monitor people who need to be taken care of at any time, such as: newborns, the elderly, etc., with the same application purpose as Yilan Veterans Hospital. This allows hospital decision makers to be more certain about the necessity of adopting active labeling.
Figure 1. A patient wearing an active tag, as long as they pass the position of the reader, the tag will locate the patient. (Provided by Yilan Veterans Hospital)
Picture 2: Information such as the ward number is sent back to the dementia management system for the elderly at the nursing station to remind the nursing staff to pay attention. (Provided by Yilan Veterans Hospital)
Continuously optimize the management system and gradually improve the quality of hospital services
At present, there are 5 readers in the sanatorium building, which are respectively installed near the ward, the entrance and exit of the building, and the hospital gate. Once the patient leaves the range of movement, the tag worn on the body will send a warning signal to actively notify the nursing station. Since the system was launched two years ago, it has managed at most a dozen patients at the same time. Vice President Yu Xizheng said that RFID does indeed play a role in monitoring the whereabouts of dementia patients, allowing them to be successfully blocked before leaving the hospital to avoid accidents. occur.
Any information investment is to increase the efficiency of business operations, but the benefits of RFID are actually not easy to evaluate from the data of the system itself. Vice President Yu Xizheng believes that the principals should view the benefits of RFID from a management perspective. RFID-assisted disease management can indeed assist medical staff so that they can take good care of every patient within a limited time. This helps to improve the quality of medical care and also reduces the turnover rate. “From the perspective of personnel management, higher work efficiency and lower turnover rate save hospitals the cost of recruiting and training employees,” he said.
Since RFID has indeed played the effect of assisting patient management, Yilan Veterans Hospital has begun planning for further applications. Vice President Yu Xizheng stated that he would prioritize equipment optimization and do the following: First, set up more readers in the hospital area so that the nursing station can accurately grasp the activity status of patients with dementia. Now that the number of readers is too small, in order to monitor the patient’s movements, the tag sensing distance has to be increased. However, the system’s sensing is too sensitive and the warning device often sounds, which will reduce the nursing staff’s alertness to the warning sound over time. , On the contrary, it is easy to cause management omissions. Therefore, the addition of readers is necessary. Second, the use of a new generation of tag bracelets improves wearing comfort and reduces the chance of easy removal by patients with dementia.
The increased deployment density of readers not only helps to control the whereabouts of patients, but also implements infection control management in the hospital area. Vice President Yu Xizheng said that by configuring RFID tags on the identification cards of medical staff, and the readers scattered in the hospital, their activity tracks can be transmitted back to the system in real time. In this way, the contact history of medical staff with patients with various diseases can be accurately grasped. If the medical staff develops symptoms of infection, they can also trace back from the record to find the source of the infection and conduct isolation treatment to prevent other personnel from being infected. The health of medical staff and patients in the hospital. Vice President Yu Xizheng believes that although the introduction cost of the active labeling system is relatively high, it can provide a richer application aspect and allow medical institutions to gradually improve the quality of services. After overall evaluation, it is still a worthwhile investment.
Figure 3: Although the reader in the sanatorium building is set up at a high place, because of the long sensing distance of the active tag,
Therefore, there is no need to worry about the situation where the patient passes but the system does not read it. (Provided by Yilan Veterans Hospital)
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