chrispeng [ad_1]
Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital (AGSH), Downers Grove, Illinois An acute care center with 340 beds is now installed with a real-time location system (RTLS), using active RFID and workflow software to track surgical instruments.
This system includes Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS) real-time workflow automation and tracking software, and Awarepoint’s active RFID tags and readers.
About four years ago, AGSH Hospital initiated a hospital-wide renovation project with an investment of 45 million US dollars. The real-time positioning system is part of it. The compartments and a central disinfection department are refurbished. Peggy Guastella, head of surgery at AGSH, said, “We hope that new technologies can help us improve efficiency, and achieving surgical instrument tracking is one of them.”
Awarepoint’s RTLS system uses reusable and sterilizable active RFID tags-this is an important requirement of AGSH, because all equipment and instruments entering the operating room must be sterilized. “We paid attention to RFID technology a few years ago, but the technology at the time was not yet fully in line with our needs,” Guastella explained. “We require tracking buttons or tags that can withstand the sterilization of the autoclave.”
Awarepoint released this sterilizable label a year ago, which can withstand high pressure steamer temperatures up to 135 degrees and common liquid sterilization methods. The length and width of the label are less than 1.5 inches, and the disinfection process label can be kept on the asset so that hospitals and medical institutions can monitor the disinfection process.
According to Stephen Armstrong, PCTS’ marketing director, AGSH plans to begin using 150 tags this month to track various surgical tools used for appendectomy or other procedures. In addition, the hospital plans to use 40 tags to track a variety of assets, including infusion mercury and surgical cameras.
The location data calculated by the Awarepoint RFID system is shared with PCTS’s Amelior ORTracker software to help hospitals track surgical equipment (especially removable devices such as surgical trays), patients and employees. The software can also combine rules and arithmetic to monitor workflow, patient flow, surgical plans and procedures.
PCTS uses special clips to fix tags on pallets and assets. When the tag is attached, its ID code corresponds to the asset or tray and related surgical attributes, such as the type of surgery-by clicking on the tag number in the Amelior ORTracker drop-down menu. A set of selected trays also corresponds to the surgical personnel who need these trays.
When the employees of the central sterilization room receive the operation preparation instructions from the hospital’s existing operation planning system, they select the correct sterilization tray according to the type of operation and assemble the required surgical instruments. The trays and labels are then sterilized, wrapped in a sterile cart, and taken to the sterile elevator to the correct operating room. The real-time positioning system can also track labels and pallets during this process.When the operation is completed, the tray is sent to the disinfection room for disinfection, and the system also tracks the labels and trays
Employees in the central sterilization room prepare surgical instruments according to the received surgical instructions
The tag’s operating frequency is 2.48 GHz, and the 802.15.4 (ZigBee) communication protocol is used to send its ID code to a small reader (called a sensor by Awarepoint) that is directly plugged into a standard 120V power socket on the wall. The tag and reader also act as receivers and communicate with each other through the ZigBee mesh network protocol. AGSH has installed 112 readers in the surgical department. A reader can send data to a main access point, or if the access point is not within the sending distance of this reader, the data is sent to another reader. The second reader forwards the information to the third reader, or a main contact within the sending distance. Each reader uses the ZigBee protocol to send its ID code, tag ID code and signal strength to a bridge.
Via an Ethernet cable, the bridge is connected to a central server of AGSH. The server calculates the location of all tagged assets based on the strength of the signal, with an accurate range of 3-10 feet.
Realizing the tracking of the surgical tray from the sterilization room to the operating room ensures that the surgeon does not need to wait for the correct surgical instrument, which improves work efficiency.
Now, medical staff can use the computer to enter the Amelior ORTracker, enter the type of surgery or the name of the doctor to find a specific tray.
In the next few months, the hospital will also add several workflow automation features, such as a waiting form for high-demand trays, and the system will trigger an alarm when a dirty tray is taken to the cleaning area. In addition, PCTS will help hospitals integrate Amelior ORTracker into the existing surgical planning system, so that trays can correspond to patients and their surgical categories, allowing nurses to search for and track specific trays by patient name.
In addition, the hospital also plans to use RTLS and Amelior ORTracker to monitor patients. A label will be attached to the patient’s surgical gown, and the ID number of the label corresponds to the number assigned when the patient is admitted to the hospital. In this way, family members in the operating waiting room can understand the patient’s operating procedures.
[ad_2]
