Virginia Mason Medical Center uses RFID to change the traditional waiting process and improve hospital efficiency
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The Virginia Mason Medical Center in the Kirkland area of Washington opened a new clinic in the spring of 2009. The clinic has 20 doctors and handles approximately 400 patients every day. Unlike other clinics, this clinic has completely subverted the concept of traditional clinics and waiting rooms. The patients in the general clinic wait in the waiting room until the nurse guides them to the examination room, while the patients in the Virginia Mason clinic first go through a check-in process similar to staying in a hotel, and then assign an examination room, give directions, and guide the patient Go to the location immediately.
In order to make this process work properly, the clinic adopted a set of RFID-IR system provided by Versus Technology. The company’s Enterprise VISion system allows clinic staff to track the location of patients and staff, said Tom Ott, Versus’ national sales director, and sends real-time alerts so that employees can adjust care plans according to the specific needs of patients.
After registering at the front desk, the staff assigned an examination room to each patient and issued them a card indicating the room number and the division of the clinic. A Versus battery-powered RF-IR hybrid label is pinned on the card. Every three seconds, the tag simultaneously sends RF and infrared signals with the same unique ID code. The RFID component uses a proprietary air interface protocol to send a 433 MHz RF signal, while the infrared ray sends an optical signal that is imperceptible to the naked eye.
The tag ID code and patient data are entered into the VISion software running on the back-end server. The employee then enters the software to track the individual’s location in the clinic, said Shirl Diaz, Virginia Mason’s managing director. The clinic has installed a total of 158 Versus readers on the ceiling-7 are RFID and 146 are infrared-including staff and patient areas.
Each employee is assigned an ID badge with a Versus battery-powered RF-IR hybrid tag. Badges (can be pinned on clothes) send ID codes. When doctors, clinic assistants or other employees go to work, the system knows their all-weather location and stores the location information and time, so that the medical center can locate the staff in real time and store information about their activities.
Each examination room has two doors, which are entered from a separate aisle. The patient enters through the door on one side, and the employee enters through the door on the other side. In this way, patients and employees are separated in the aisle. When the patient and the doctor or other nursing staff are in the same room, the IR and RFID readers obtain the signals of different tags and send their location information to the VISion software.
The IR function helps the clinic locate the room where the tag is located. The software can translate which doctor met with which patient and how long they spent in the examination room, helping the clinic analyze the time the doctor spent on the patient and which examination The most efficient room.
The system is also used for real-time monitoring. For example, if a patient stays in the examination room for too long, the employee will receive an alert to visit the patient or contact the doctor assigned by the patient. The hospital can also analyze its own process to understand why this patient takes longer than other patients.
This system also improves the doctor’s work efficiency. The doctor can better understand when the patient is ready and when he will have a few minutes of free time to send back emails or make calls.
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