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On August 11, 2011, the Canadian hospital Hotel-Dieu d’Amos announced that it was using the RFID solution provided by Logi-D to help manage its medical supplies. The hospital has not released any information on the benefits of the system; according to information from LOGI-D, the technology is expected to reduce replenishment by 50% and inventory by 20%.
In addition to the automatic generation of replenishment orders for consumable medical supplies, the system helps to ensure that the supplies are within the warranty period. Jacquelin Labonville, the head nurse of the hospital’s operating room, said: Since the system was installed in February 2011, the solution has helped the hospital track approximately 1,400 medical supplies in a certain period of time.
The Hotel-Dieu d’Amos Hospital in Quebec has 96 beds and has been looking for a system that can help medical staff manage the use and automatic replenishment of consumable medical supplies. These consumable medical supplies include needles, gloves, and about 1,400 different types of therapeutic supplies, totaling about 8,000 pieces.
The main purpose of the hospital adopting this system is to reduce the time staff spend on inventory management, ordering consumables and waiting for replenishment. Similarly, make sure that the replenishment products are fully utilized during the warranty period.
Before the installation of the RFID system, Hotel-Dieu d’Amos Hospital adopted a set of regular automatic replenishment (PAR) inventory management system to keep an eye on inventory levels. According to the average usage rate of items, the hospital establishes an inventory that can support daily operations for the quantity of each item used. In addition to observing the targeted replenishment date under the automatic replenishment (PAR) inventory management system, the material management staff also approximates the number of daily consumable items. This set of solutions can solve the phenomenon of lack of supplies, but it often leads to inventory backlogs.
At the end of 2010, Logi-ID installed 80 storage cabinets in the hospital. Each cabinet has nine drawers, usually divided into 4 compartments, two at the front and two at the back. Jean-Philippe Racette, the marketing coordinator of Logi-D, said: The hospital staff stuck their company’s high-frequency 13.56 MHz, ISO 15693 passive RFID tags on the label holders on the surface of each compartment. Each label has a unique ID number corresponding to medical supplies, such as a certain type of surgical glove. All these data are stored in the software of the hospital’s back-end system, which was developed by Logi-ID and has been integrated with the supply chain management system.
The supplies in the front compartment should be consumed first. As soon as the first two compartments were emptied, the hospital staff moved the RFID-tagged fixing clips to the Lexan polycarbonate board (14 inches by 10 inches or 19 inches by 19 inches) installed on the wall near the storage cabinet . The hospital uses two larger boards, each of which can hold up to 50 tags. The board itself has a built-in Logi-ID reader, which can read the ID number of the tag and forward the information to the Logi-DATA-iD data software via wired network or WiFi.
The software uses the ID number of the replenishment to find the relevant information about the replenishment, and forwards this information to the hospital’s inventory management system to remind the staff to handle the replenishment order. During this period, clinical staff use supplies that can use the two compartments behind the storage cabinet. Once the new medical supplies arrive, the material management staff transfers the items in the last two compartments to the first two compartments, and then replenishes the newly arrived supplies to the back compartments. Finally, put the label fixing clips on the Lexan polycarbonate board back to the surface of the first two compartments of the cabinet.
The double-box RFID replenishment system has many improvements over the previous supply system. Labonville said: Because of the installation of the system, the material management personnel are relieved of the trouble of counting the number of supplies each day. “Emergency orders” to prevent medical supplies from running out are no longer needed. In addition, the use of this compartment rotation system reduces the number of discarded items due to expired items.
In addition, when a tag stays on the polycarbonate board for too long or a product is recalled, the LogiDATA-ID data software will issue an alert.
If necessary, the alert can be sent to multiple recipients via e-mail or sent to a fax machine. According to the source of supply, the warning information can be sent to different departments. For example, for inventory items (in-hospital storage), the message will be sent to a distribution center that can generate a selection list and provide consumables; for non-stock items (especially external suppliers of the hospital), the information will be sent to the hospital’s purchasing department, The purchasing department then places an order with an external supplier.
Benefits of the system:
Labonville said that so far, the hospital has not counted the time saved by the application of the RFID-enabled replenishment system. However, Racette said that according to a survey of hospitals that have used the solution, the adoption of the solution has reduced the amount of time nursing staff spend on medical supplies-related tasks by about 60%, and material management staff can save 15% of time and repetition. Waste cost is reduced by 50%.
In addition to the RFID system, the Logi-D’s PA-iD system also has a voice guidance function that assists material managers in managing cabinets. For example, each employee wears a headset and uses voice command prompt software to find specific items—the detailed location of gloves. When sorting items, employees will talk to microphones and headsets, and the software will automatically query the location of items and provide voice prompts. The voice guidance function is only an additional function of the RFID system, and RFID technology is not used.
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