theRTLSBlog.com: University Research Concludes Real Time Location Systems Can Transform Hospitals Indiana and Purdue University Research Reveals Cost Savings, Operational Efficiency, Improved Patient Care and Higher Staff Morale

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. and MORRISVILLE, N.C. (November 17, 2009) – Results from the first multidisciplinary university study examining the impact of a Real Time Location System (RTLS) deployed throughout a hospital show that the technology for tracking mobile medical equipment is driving increased operational efficiency and saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, while also enabling nurses to spend more time with patients and improve staff morale.

A thorough evaluation of the impact of implementing the RadarFind RTLS at Southeastern Regional Medical Center (SRMC) in Lumberton, N.C. analyzed the system’s influence on the management of equipment support, nursing and patient care, as well as hospital finances. The study results, soon to be published in the Journal of Clinical Engineering, revealed that the technology allowed staff to reduce time spent searching for tagged equipment by 96 percent, saved the hospital $750,000 in indirect costs, and illuminated potential future benefits as the new technology is further integrated into the hospital’s operations and culture.

“The level of data generated by these systems has the potential to profoundly change the management of technology and the delivery of patient care,” said Barbara Christe, the lead researcher for the study team and associate professor and program director of Biomedical Engineering Technology at the joint research campus Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. In 2008, Christe, her colleagues and students received the 2008 Outstanding Management & Technology Paper award from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) for their research on adapting radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to a clinical application.

The research team also included a professor of electrical and computer engineering technology and an associate professor of accounting from the business school. “Southeastern Regional Medical Center is a model for how a clear, cooperative, synergistic relationship between hospital administrators and various clinical staff departments can support the success of a real time location system in meeting stated objectives,” said Christe.

Leveraging real-time data to make hospitals more efficient and improve patient care

SRMC estimates that nurses spent at least one hour per day searching for equipment, resulting in an hour saved for locating tagged equipment since the RadarFind system was installed. On an annual basis for the 120 nurses working at the hospital, the annual indirect savings is $750,000, and nurses are able to spend more time with patients.

Additional savings may be realized from reducing capital expenditures based on using equipment utilization data gathered by the system. During the study, RadarFind representatives demonstrated that utilization data could support a smaller amount of infusion pumps than the hospital was planning to purchase. Wayne Memorial Hospital in Goldsboro, N.C. (not part of this study)deployed RadarFind in 2006 and was able to reduce a planned infusion pump purchase by 20 percent in less than one year after installation from evaluating the utilization data. This resulted in a capital purchase savings of $276,000 and annual operating cost savings of $27,000.

In surveys and interviews, clinical engineering staff reported that the time spent searching for tagged equipment has been reduced from 4 hours a day to less than 10 minutes. In addition, preventive maintenance compliance rates for tagged equipment have improved from 90 percent monthly to a consistent 100 percent. Nursing staff are also reporting greatly improved hospital efficiency as they are now able to locate previously “hidden” equipment, and reported job satisfaction has risen accordingly.

“As a former nurse I understand the frustration experienced by nursing staff when they must search for equipment,” said Joanne Anderson, president and chief executive officer of SRMC. “This technology supports our nurses and enables them to spend more time caring for patients, ensuring that our patients receive the utmost quality of care and benefitting hospital staff morale.”

RadarFind is the only RTLS to feature a three-state, color-coded status switch on tags to mark equipment as available (green), in-use (yellow) or needs cleaning/decontamination (red). This can be a powerful tool when leveraged as part of a hospital’s infection control procedures. For example, a piece of equipment with a “dirty” status tag may be identified if it is mistakenly placed in a clean storage room. In addition, by analyzing the time-stamped location history of a piece of equipment or patient, data gathered by the RTLS can be used to track an infection in a hospital. Causal relationships between contaminated medical devices and infected patients can also be easily determined.

Wide-ranging potential for future impact

The study identified initiatives that could increase the benefits of RTLS, ranging from eliminating the need for an annual physical inventory to referencing the history of equipment used in each patient room to ensure accuracy when billing a patient or insurance company. Other suggestions included analyzing data to determine where a piece of equipment is most likely to be used in order to develop a better storage plan for those items. An RTLS will undoubtedly help reduce equipment loss due to misplacement or theft.

RadarFind, the only RTLS designed by former doctors and hospital administrators to meet the unique requirements for tracking mobile medical equipment and people in hospitals, was recently acquired by TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., the market leader in patient flow automation. Together, the companies will continue to improve hospital operations by linking information gathered through wireless sensor networks, RTLS and intelligent software to hospital procedures thereby reducing waste and driving more efficient processes for patient care.

“The transformational results attainable by implementing our suite of automated tracking solutions for hospitals are influencing process changes throughout the facility, as evidenced by this study,” said Michael Nelson, president of RadarFind. “The combination of technologies from RadarFind and TeleTracking offers hospitals the most comprehensive answer to the need for tracking and accountability, and reducing unnecessary costs while improving efficiencies and overall patient care.”

About RadarFind

RadarFind’s Real Time Location System uses an innovative wireless sensor network platform for tracking medical equipment and patients that is highly accurate, yet nondisruptive to hospital operations. RadarFind Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., a leader in patient flow automation solutions with more than 800 hospital clients in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information, please visit www.teletracking.com or www.radarfind.com.

About IUPUI

Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis is Indiana's premier urban university, with 20 schools and academic units which grant degrees in more than 200 programs from both Indiana University and Purdue University. For more information, please visit www.iupui.edu.

About Southeastern Regional Medical Center

Southeastern Regional Medical Center is the hub of a comprehensive health care system in southeastern North Carolina. The not-for-profit, fully-accredited medical center offers the Southeastern Heart Center, managed by Duke University Health System, birthing suites and a combination of acute care, intensive care and psychiatric services to over 13,000 inpatients and 75,000 outpatients annually. For more information, please visit www.srmc.org.

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The Providence Journal:
By Bruce Landis

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Governor Carcieri has vetoed legislation that would have limited the use of electronic devices that track people as well as objects such as motor vehicles, something privacy advocates here and across the country are concerned about.
Called radio frequency identification devices, and often referred to as “tags,” they use radio signals that link the person or object tracked to a computer system. They have become controversial in Rhode Island when local school officials considered using them to track students, and they have also attracted attention because they are essential to the state’s electronic toll-collection system, E-ZPass.
The governor vetoed two bills that would have banned the use of RFID tags to track students and would have required police and other law enforcement agencies to get court orders before they could get access to toll data, similar to the requirements for other searches and seizures. (The data would have remained available without a court order for toll enforcement.)
The governor’s veto messages to the General Assembly, made public Tuesday, objected to preventing local officials from using the tags to keep track of students. He cited a number of circumstances where he said the tags could be useful, such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks or even for routine events such as field trips.
A sponsor of one of the bills and the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped develop and supported the legislation, criticized the vetoes.
Sen. Frank A. Ciccone III, D-Providence, the sponsor of one of the bills, said the devices suggest “ ‘big brother’ watching over everyone.”
Amy Vitale, the ACLU’s program coordinator, said the devices “put information in the hands of people who can use it for nefarious purposes” that have nothing to do with its intended purposes.
“We don’t think the schools should be in charge of an RFID program,” she said. “This is not something that government should be involved in any way.”
Ciccone said he has worked for years on similar bills that Carcieri vetoed, continually amending the legislation to address the governor’s objections in past messages and to accommodate interested groups such as special-education programs.
As for tracking students, he said, “If the parent wants it, the bill allows it.”
Ciccone also questioned whether the student-tracking system would be practical. For instance, he said, putting RFID chips in students’ backpacks would often end up tracking the backpacks, not the students.
The veto messages did not address the related issue of data being collected through systems such as E-ZPass.

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Business Wire: ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--RF Controls, LLC, creators of the standards-based Intelligent Tracking and Control System (ITCS®), which provides real-time location of items that have been tagged with inexpensive passive UHF RFID tags, today announced a further breakthrough in system performance.

Using advanced, patent pending signal processing algorithms, a single ITCS Signal Acquisition and Source Location (SASL®) “smart antenna” can now accurately determine the ranges of all tags it can read, to an individual accuracy of 1’ (30cm). Ranging accuracy is consistent across the full operating range of a SASL. This significant innovation means that each SASL can now accurately locate tagged items in 3D, which in turn means that ITCS provides even higher integrity tag location data. ITCS’ unique capabilities provide end-users with valuable real-time data to address latent business process issues and improve operating efficiency.

In RW Baird’s “Supply Chain Technology – RFID Monthly”, industry analyst Reik Read provided an objective narrative on ITCS, concluding “We view the ability to scan specific zones as a key attribute that can help locate missing items, provide real-time out of stock information, improve pick processes and can aid in inventory transfers, all in real-time.”

RFID Journal Magazine heralded “beam-steerable phased-array antennas” as a top 10 technology to watch during 2009. ITCS Bidirectional Electronically Steerable Phased Array (BESPA™) antenna technology achieves exceptionally long operating range and has transformed the market’s expectations of the capabilities of passive UHF RFID systems.

ITCS’ unique and powerful combination of features gives end-users the ability to automatically identify, locate and track tagged items on a zonal basis; ITCS eliminates the need for restrictive, nodal data capture points such as portals. Tagged items may be arbitrarily situated within the area or volume being monitored. Simply tag items of interest with standards compliant (ISO 180006-C / EPCglobal UHF Gen2) passive UHF RFID tags, deploy ITCS to “light up” the environment in which those tagged items are present, and you get accurate, real-time location of all those tagged items, enabling efficient, automated inventory and asset management.

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Intelligent InSites delivers automation solutions that transform the healthcare industry by dramatically driving down costs while improving the level of care. By providing a single platform capable of streamlining dozens of systems and processes using real-time location and sensory data continuously collected throughout the enterprise, Intelligent InSites helps their clients gain visibility into their operations and make profound improvements in the area of resident safety, workflow optimization, asset and inventory management, and regulatory compliance.

RFID Journal: The Rifidi Edge Server can manage EPC Gen 2 RFID interrogators and RFID reader data, as well as information from bar-code scanners, sensors and other hardware.
By Claire Swedberg
Oct. 26, 2009—RFID software company Pramari has released an open-source middleware platform, the Rifidi Edge Server, that is free to download and use. The firm also offers support, consulting and training at a cost of approximately $5,000 for most small to midsize customers. Rifidi began beta testing the middleware on June 15 of this year, and released Version 1.0 on Oct. 26.

The Rifidi Edge Server middleware collects data from EPC Gen 2 RFID readers, filters that information and delivers it to systems that employ the data for business processes. The middleware works not only with RFID interrogators, but also with bar-code scanners, sensors and other hardware, such as cameras.

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DOT Med News:
October 26, 2009
by Brendon Nafziger, Writer

The Georgia Tech Research Institute announced plans this month to test whether a common tracking system used in hospitals and warehouses interferes with medical devices.

The Atlanta-based applied research organization is developing protocols for its decade-old medical device testing lab to investigate the effect of radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology on implantable medical devices like defibrillators and pacemakers.

Although RFID is a ubiquitous technology that uses radio waves to track items in hospitals, stores and libraries to monitor inventory and prevent theft, nobody really knows if it has the potential to interfere with sensitive, and lifesaving, devices like implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs).

"There's a potential there for interference," Ralph Herkert, director of GTRI's Medical Device Test Center, tells DOTmed News. "Basically, pacemakers and defibs are monitoring bodily functions, so they have sensing circuitry," he continues. "Any time you have sensing circuitry, you have the possibility for an interfering signal to get there."

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TMC Net: October 21, 2009

Alien Technology Expands High-Performance Enterprise Category for RFID Reader Platform

By Nathesh, TMCnet Contributor

Alien Technology, a provider of UHF Gen 2 RFID products and services, has announced the release of a new next-generation EMEA Gen 2 RFID reader and the expansion of its high-performance enterprise category reader platform.

The new ALR-9900-EMA (News - Alert) reader is designed to the latest ETSI regulations, serving Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and comes densely packed with numerous feature-rich offerings.

The company has said that its Alien reader product line offers superior read-range and software interfaces to make it easier for customers to take advantage of RFID reporting for LAN- and WAN-based networks and Alien’s array of high-performance, flexible EPC Gen 2 RFID readers are easy to deploy and manage.

According to the company, the Alien ALR-9900 Enterprise Reader allows users to deploy manageable, robust, best-in-class EPC Gen 2 RFID solutions for supply chain, manufacturing and asset management applications. The ALR-9900 offers highly reliable, automatic data capture and supports key RFID platforms including Microsoft BizTalk RFID, IBM WebSphere 6.0, Oat Systems,Oracle ( News - Alert), GlobeRanger, BEA and many others.

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RFID News: Eastern Maine Medical Center’s (EMMC) newly renovated 32,000 square foot Imaging Center has recently installed a Real-time Locating System (RTLS) in order to better manage patient flow.

Versus Technology’s RTLS automatically captures time parameters related to each patient’s visit, including wait time and time to complete a particular imaging service.

Imaging Center staff can then make real-time comparisons to benchmarked goals, perform more accurate scheduling based on actual time to complete certain procedures, and better inform patients as to expected wait and procedure times.

Additionally, Versus automatically identifies room status as available, in-use, reserved, in-process (being cleaned) or unavailable based on patient locations

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Reuters: SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- InSync Software, Inc., provider of the fabric for the world's leading RFID, GPS and sensor-driven line-of-business software applications, announced today that the company has closed $4.7 million in Series B funding. The latest investment round was led by existing investors Intel Capital and Rustic Canyon Ventures, along with participation by strategic individual investors.

The funding comes as InSync experiences increasing momentum and growth in its business. In 2009 alone, InSync has doubled its customer and partner base and completed major deployments of its award-winning iApp platform and Applications by market-leading companies such as Dole Foods, Bayer, SonicWall and others. Additionally, InSync has been rapidly expanding its global presence with customer wins in Asia, the Middle East, Canada and elsewhere.

Much of this activity has been recognized by the marketplace, as InSync's products have increasingly garnered the attention of customers, partners and industry analysts alike in 2008 and 2009 - culminating in numerous product and company awards from organizations including NSF International (for Food Safety), Managing Automation (for Food Safety and Yard Management), Supply and Demand Chain Executive (for Supply Chain), Inbound Logistics (for Logistics)and others.

InSync has developed a strong partner network comprised of industry-leading hardware providers, systems integrators and technology companies such as IBM,IDENTEC Solutions, Intermec, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell and Mojix.

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Network Computing: Asahi India Glass, one of the largest manufacturers of glass for automotives, uses specially designed metallic pallets to store and move the automotive glass across the supply chain, right from the production floor till the car manufacturer's assembly line. Thus, visibility of these pallets is imperative at all times, not only at the firm’s own facilities, but also at the customer's end.

Asahi faced a huge challenge with respect to monitoring and accounting for these pallets, since they are critical to production, are moveable, large in number and circulated in an open loop supply chain.

To improve pallet visibility, the firm partnered with Barcode India, which developed a turnkey solution for returnable asset tracking using Motorola passive UHF Gen2 RFID technology. Today, each pallet is mounted with RFID tags which carry a unique pallet ID number.

The gate portals are erected at strategic locations to capture the movement of the pallets. As a forklift carrying an RFID-enabled pallet passes through these portals for inward, outward or within facility movement, the tags are read by gate readers and processed by the application software. The pallet transactions are also captured at the customer's end at the time of delivery using hand held RFID readers.

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