Columbus OhioHealth Hospital Tests RFID Handwashing Monitoring Solution
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OhioHealth hospital through installationRFIDSolutions to monitor employee handwashing and allow employees to view their own handwashing records and how they compare to other employees. The system, provided by IBM, empowers the head nurse to monitor whether nurses wash their hands before entering and leaving the ward and comply with the hospital’s relevant hygiene regulations.
Each worker has an RFID badge with a unique ID number. According to different ID numbers, employees can compare the compliance rate of handwashing with each other. The solution began piloting at OhioHealth Hospital in Columbus in March 2013, during which the hospital achieved a compliance rate of 94 percent out of a national compliance rate of 50 percent.
Automatic hand sanitizer squeezer
OhioHealth is testing two floors where paramedics frequently come and go, one in the intensive care unit area and the other in the medical remote sensing area; each floor has about 33 patients.
According to hospital hygiene regulations, medical staff are required to wash their hands when entering and leaving a patient’s room. With the implementation of the RFID solution, the hospital has installed 100 active wireless RFID sensors on each test floor. IBM developed and installed the low-power sensor LMT, which includes a 433 MHz RFIDReaderand 2.4GHz transmission point. The hospital’s current sinks are equipped with RFID sensors and teleportation points. Most of these sensing devices are installed at the entrance, and some are installed in the lobby or elevator.
About 250 employees are equipped with active 433 MHz RFID tags (provided by IBM) that store unique ID codes associated with their personal information. The reading range of the RFID reader embedded in the sink is 5 meters. When the staff enters the ward, the RFID reader in the sink reads the staff’s RFID tag ID. Data-processing software installed in the background predicts that employees will approach the sink and squeeze the hand sanitizer. Once the hand sanitizer squeezer is pressed, it sends a signal to the backend data software via the teleportation point.
Although the reading range of the RFID reader is 5 meters, because the ward space is large enough, the RFID tag is read twice only when the medical staff enters and leaves the ward. When the medical staff leaves the ward, the RFID tag is read, while recording that the medical staff should wash their hands. The background software records the above information through the ID code of the tag.
After the system was installed, IBM provided the hospital with a weekly or daily handwashing compliance rate table. Later, with the continuous upgrading of the system, managers can log in to the system to access data every fifteen minutes, so as to monitor the handwashing of medical staff in real time, and take corresponding reward or punishment measures.
The automatic hand sanitizer dispenser is installed in the ward, which is connected to the LMT sensor (embedded 433 MHz RFID reader and 2.4 GHz transmission point).
After the RFID monitoring system is installed, the compliance rates among medical staff can be compared with each other, which greatly motivates the enthusiasm of medical staff to wash their hands. The hospital plans to install RFID solutions on other floors in 2014.
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