Wake Forest University Medical Center in the U.S. launches an RFID real-time location system for vaccine tracking
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Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center has begun a passionate wireless deployment that can track patients, staff, and assets in its 4.1 million square foot center after successful deployment, but the initial deployment focused on tracking 300 The temperature in a refrigerator and freezer.
According to the technology vendors implementing the system, the size of the medical center makes this healthcare tracking system the largest one at present. The combination of the Amelior Tracker software application of the patient care technology system and the InTouchCare real-time positioning system of the CenTrak healthcare tracking technology company in Newton, Pennsylvania enables the operation of the PCTS. This InTouchCare real-time location system uses infrared InTouchCare transmitters and sensors, and its 900 MHz RFID tags can determine the location of each room.
WFUBMC, with 1,056 beds, provides healthcare services to the Windsor area of North Carolina. About three years ago, the hospital began looking for ways to track assets for its infusion pumps, wheelchairs and other high-value mobile devices. “Our inventory has been growing year after year,” said Robert Parker, vice president of WFUBMC Family and Community Health Care.
If some assets cannot be found, then they are either no longer in the storage area of the equipment or not stored in the place where they should be stored at all. At this time, other additional equipment will have to be ordered.
WFUBMC has found a solution that will help track assets and can flexibly add new features to this set of tracking infrastructure at any time. The hospital initially tried a real-time location system based on Wi-Fi (local area network) RFID tags, but the system was unable to determine the location of assets in a specific room.
“We see the difficulties associated with Wi-Fi and ZigBee, Parker said, “that is, the lack of separation size when determining the location of assets. The hospital also investigated ultrasound solutions, but nevertheless the hospital did not find an easy-to-install wireless system.
Earlier, the Center for Immunization Advisory Committee for Disease Control and Prevention established a new guideline, suggesting that hospitals track the temperature of vaccines twice a day, which is a labor-intensive task. Therefore, WFUBMC considered adopting the InTouchCare system to provide temperature monitoring. And asset tracking.
About 9 months ago, WFUBMC began testing the Amelior tracking application combined with InTouchCare technology. The hospital installed InTouchCare temperature-sensitive tags in the refrigerators of equipment on several floors and installed InTouchCare asset tracking tags on its mobile devices. These sensors are installed outside each refrigerator or freezer, and there is also a temperature sensor placed inside the refrigerator or freezer. The trial has been deployed at the beginning of this month. By February 2010, when the hospital has completed its infusion pump renewal project, the new model of infusion pump will replace its existing infusion pump. The hospital intends to begin to install tags on the new infusion pump and other assets, initially to install 4000 Labels. At the same time, PCTS has installed approximately 1,300 infrared transmitters in each room and installed hundreds of RFID antennas throughout the facility.
When using this system, each infrared transmitter emits an infrared signal with a room code when the system is installed. The signal is received by all tags in the room. This type of tag is called “Gen 2IR” by CenTrak. It does not require a line of sight. Even if the tag is under the blanket, it can still receive IR transmission signals. Each tag sequentially transmits the unique ID number of the radio frequency signal with the room code to the RFID antenna connected to the RFID reader on each floor. Wil Lukens, vice president of business development at CenTrak, said that the reader uses InTouchCare middleware to transfer the data of all tags on each floor to the PCTS Amelior Enterprise Visibility Suite software on the back end of the hospital’s LAN server. Because RFID tags use batteries, he said, they have a long reading distance, allowing each reader antenna to cover an area of 10,000 square feet.
In some cases, the hospital uses an IR transmitter to build a virtual wall. The IR transmitter emits several different radio frequency signals according to different sides of the room. In this way, the tag can receive a uniquely determined infrared emission signal in a specific area of the room, which can indicate the location of the room where the tag is located. Lukens said that the advantage of infrared is that it can achieve accurate positioning of a specific room or part of a room. RFID technology itself cannot be achieved, partly because the signal emitted by RFID will leak to the next room.
The tag attached to the refrigerator or cold storage transmits the signal with the ID number and address, as well as the data, time and temperature measured by its built-in sensor. If the temperature fluctuation exceeds the established safety threshold, the Amelior system can issue a warning to the predetermined parties through text messages, emails or web pages. The system can also store the results of temperature readings, and can provide the hospital with data on the historical temperature fluctuations of the refrigerator where the drug being tracked is located. Stephen Armstrong, vice president of marketing at PCTS, said that the Amelior system provides the location and location of labels on the hospital floor map. The temperature data of refrigerators and cold storages during temperature tracking. It also provides search options for finding selected floors or departments or all specific assets. Amelior can also issue warnings when the system can no longer read the transmission of tagged assets.
PCTS and CenTrak signed a cooperation agreement, Armstrong said, this is the first system deployment of the two companies. “We think CenTrak’s technology is very powerful,” he said. “The hardware is battery-powered. We like this because it simplifies installation and makes it a very simple and easy-to-configure system.”
The trial purpose of this system is to ensure that infrared transmission will not leak from one floor to another. “This is a thing to build trust for WFUBMC. They saw the simple operability of the overall device.” WFUBMC said that the infrared transmitter is battery-powered, so there is no need to install a power cord, and the reader can be used The existing local area network system of the hospital transmits the information received from the tag. The reader will be plugged into an ordinary power socket, or, yes, it can be powered by Ethernet.
This year, the hospital also plans to test a hand hygiene system using PCTS and CenTrak technology to track employees and check whether employees have washed their hands before visiting patients. In this case, the doctor will wear an RFID badge. When the lever of the soap dispenser or alcohol dispenser is pressed down, the badge will send data to the antenna of the soap dispenser or alcohol dispenser. The unique ID number of the badge will be linked with the individual’s name and stored in the server so that you can know when and where someone has washed their hands. The details of this trial are still under development, Parker pointed out.
Parker finally pointed out that he hopes that WFUBMC will improve its vaccine refrigeration recording system, so that the device can automatically monitor the temperature, instead of manual operation; by reducing the man-hours used to find missing assets and reducing the probability of re-ordering assets due to asset loss. More effective asset tracking; once a patient wears an infrared RFID tag, tracking the movement of the patient, etc., there are countless items that need improvement. He went on to add, “Our goal is to be able to manage the data generated by this technology and use this data to serve us.”
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