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PeaceHealth, a health and medical services company, operates six hospitals in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. It has installed a set of infrared and RFID hybrid systems from Versus Technology in its newly-built hospitals to track patients in the emergency department. The new Sacred Heart Medical Center is located in River Bend, Oregon, and its emergency department receives approximately 160 patients every day. The hospital provides patients with RFID badges to track their movement in the hospital. Some medical staff also wear badges so that the hospital can track their location and know which patient to treat when.
In 2006, Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Oregon installed the same system; in 2007, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Washington also installed this system.
At Sacred Heart Medical Center in River Bend, patients are often treated in multiple locations. They are sent to an independent department of the hospital for diagnosis, blood draw, X-ray, MRI or CAT scan, etc. If an automatic system is not adopted, patient tracking is a very time-consuming task for the staff in the medical emergency department. The staff has to manually enter data about the patient’s condition, or find and locate a patient department by department. The new hospital needs a tracking system that not only allows employees to know in real time the treatment or testing received by the patient, but also the doctors and nurses who carry out the treatment. After adopting this system, medical staff can learn about the treatment or testing procedures received by the patient, the participating physicians, and the procedures that have been completed.
“Knowing the patient’s location, testing and return time is very useful for nurses,” said Ginger Banks, principal analyst of PeaceHealth’s Oregon Regional Tracking Technology Group.
When the patient arrived at Sacred Heart, the medical staff pinned a VISion ID badge to the patient’s clothing. The ID badge remains in place during the patient’s treatment in the emergency department. The badge has two battery-powered chips, one for RFID and the other for infrared transmission. Both chips send an ID code, which corresponds to the patient data in the back-end database.
Badges for patients and employees
The infrared chip enables the badge to be located within a distance of 2 feet; while the RFID chip using a proprietary air interface protocol sends a signal at a frequency of 433 MHz, the signal can penetrate the wall, and the reading distance is up to 40 feet. The system combines the long reading distance of RFID and the accuracy of infrared positioning to achieve patient tracking and positioning. According to Banks, 2,600 infrared and RFID sensors are installed in the 1.2 million square foot hospital.
The sensor receives the badge signal every three seconds, and then sends the ID code to the back-end server via a wired connection. The ID code corresponds to the patient information stored in the back-end system. Patient information includes their stay time in various departments of the hospital. This information is displayed on 18 monitors in the hospital-the electronic bulletin board. Banks explained that the information is displayed in the form of digital codes that only hospital staff can understand, ensuring the safety of patient privacy.
The software can also preset rules to assign nurses and doctors according to the patient’s location and the accepted procedure. A total of 100 medical staff also wear RFID badges, so the system can also determine when the patient receives care, the corresponding medical staff and the time. The system automatically assigns medical staff according to the stay time of the staff badge in the room. When a nurse walks into a room and stays for 30 seconds, his or her name corresponds to the patient’s information. The same rules apply to doctor assignments.
Then, the patient’s location, status and participating doctors or nurses will be displayed on the electronic bulletin board.
The transmission distance of infrared signals is far less than that of RFID, Banks said, but infrared can locate the location of the tag within two feet, which can locate the tag more accurately. If the badge does not move for a period of time, the RFID chip will continue to send its ID code, and then go to sleep after 500 minutes.
Banks stated that Sacred Heart Medical Center plans to install readers in anesthesia rooms and operating rooms to track the location of patients and employees, reduce waiting time, and ensure that patients receive the treatment they need.
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