Grace Medical Center uses ZulaFly RTLS to prevent food and medicine damage
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Grace Medical Center is a 123-bed hospital in the Grace Medical System. After deploying the RTLS system to monitor the temperature of refrigerators and freezers for 2 months, the hospital prevented a loss of $15,000 due to food expiration. The solution is provided by ZulaFly, using the company’s own Fusion software platform to read CenTrak RFID temperature sensor data. According to ZulaFly management partner Stephanie Andersen, Grace Medical System can view temperature data in real time.
Grace Medical Center is located in Lubbock, Texas, and treats 11,000 patients each year. A year ago, the hospital launched an oncology department that has some high-value chemotherapy drugs that need to be stored at a special temperature. Christopher Winn, director of business development and procurement at Grace Medical Systems, said that the two freezer boxes stored nearly $500,000 in medicine.
(ZulaFly installs a battery-powered CenTral temperature sensor tag on the outside of each freezer, and sends temperature data every 5 seconds)
Winn said that temperature control has always been the hospital’s top priority, but in the past, staff had to manually check the temperature of these freezing units, take readings and identify abnormalities that could damage stored medicines. Hospital managers are very interested in RTLS technology and hope to use it for temperature monitoring, asset tracking, and hand hygiene monitoring. Considering the high value of oncology drugs in this department, the management decided to first try to use the RTLS solution to monitor the cooling box. He said: “We think temperature monitoring is the most critical part.”
In late August 2016, ZulaFly used the solution on 18 individual freezers located in the oncology department of the medical center, hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, laboratories, operating rooms, and eating areas. ZulaFly installs a battery-powered CenTral temperature sensor tag on the outside of each freezer, and sends temperature data every 5 seconds.
In the large walk-in refrigerator in the eating area, ZulaFly installed two CenTrak temperature sensors, each with a built-in probe to monitor the fluctuations before and after the equipment. The hospital also deployed a CenTrak Star network access point to receive the 900 MHz signal emitted by the sensor and forward the data to the CenTrak server via an Ethernet connection. The server then interprets the location and temperature data and uploads it to the Fuzion software.
Grace Medical Center uses cloud software to set the temperature threshold of each freezer. In this way, when the sensor temperature is higher or lower than the set threshold, Fuzion software will send an alarm message back to the department manager. If the repair is not carried out within two hours, the software will contact the medical center manager.
Since installing this technology, the hospital has learned the details of the operation of the freezer and its daily operating conditions.
(Temperature probes are placed in each freezer and connected to the CenTrak label on the outside of the freezer)
By installing two sensors in the walk-in refrigerator, the hospital learned that the previous temperature readings were inaccurate. This is because the blower blows cold air toward the thermometer, while the temperature of other parts of the freezer is too high.
Based on this information, Grace Medical Center changed the replenishment process of walk-in refrigerators. Now, all temperature-sensitive foods will be packed in a segmented area near the refrigerator so that the door will not be opened for a long time.
In one incident, the temperature of the walk-in refrigerator was too high. The system warned the staff to avoid damage to the items and saved the hospital $15,000.
Andersen said that although ZulaFly focuses on the healthcare industry, it can provide RTLS solutions for the general market. She said: “We have developed a non-specific product. The company provides software and RTLS technology installation in the form of a software as a service (SaaS) model for purchase or lease.”
For Grace Medical Center, the next step will be to install this technology in other freezers. The hospital will also use the tag to monitor asset and hand hygiene compliance. In this way, the hospital will reduce the losses caused by the loss of assets and ensure compliance with hand hygiene.
For hand hygiene compliance, the hospital will provide personnel with CenTrak badges and install a reader on the sanitary cleaner to track the frequency of hand cleaning.
Grace Medical Center uses the SaaS model to pay for the system, which will reduce the initial investment in hardware and software.
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