Brigham And Women’s Hospital Goes Live In Patient Tower with Asset-Tracking Technology
20 February, 2008
category: Biometrics, RFID
To better track thousands of expensive patient-care devices across 17 floors, Brigham and Women’s Hospital is in the process of expanding and reconfiguring its campus to enhanced asset-tracking technology, the health organization announced earlier.
Brigham has made a commitment to install Radianse real-time location technology to hospital reduce costs, increase efficiency and improve the patient experience.
BWH, an early adopter of the Radianse location platform, piloted the active-RFID-enabled technology in 2004 and 2005 based on a formula developed by L. Michael Fraai, director of biomedical engineering.
RFID Healthcare: Brigham And Women’s Hospital Goes Live In Patient Tower With Radianse Reveal Asset Tracking
2/20/2008
As Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) expands and reconfigures its campus to enhance patient-centered care services, its investment in Radianse real-time location technology continues to help the hospital reduce costs, increase efficiency and improve the patient experience. BWH recently flipped the switch to be able to track thousands of expensive patient care devices, most to room level precision, across the 17 floors of the inpatient tower. A delay or inability to find these devices could compromise care delivery or quality of work life for the caregiver, according to the hospital.
BWH, an early adopter of the Radianse location platform, piloted the active-RFID-enabled technology in 2004/2005 based on a formula developed by L. Michael Fraai, director of biomedical engineering. Covering multiple units, operating rooms, common areas and departmental portals, the BWH pilot was as large as many other hospitals’ full implementation of real-time asset tracking. “We were able to show a 50% reduction in lost equipment, which led to a 15-month ROI,” said Fraai. “The results were positive enough that it became a ‘must do’ investment hospital-wide.”
Radianse Reveal Asset Tracking is now used in the emergency department, med-surg units, and common areas and where it was originally implemented cardiac care and perioperative units. In the spring of 2008, when the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center opens, it too will feature the Radianse real-time location platform. Among the benefits BWH points to:
More direct patient care time by nurses who no longer need to go on “hunt and gather” missions
Reduced turnaround time in surgery based on the necessary equipment being in place
Increased asset utilization and reduced losses
Improved compliance, based on staff being able to pinpoint the exact location of recalled assets
From emergency to med-surg and beyond: RFID and the patient experience
Seeing these and other benefits realized, BWH’s CIO Sue Schade has become an advocate for getting even more value from the Radianse investment.
“There are opportunities for leveraging RFID beyond equipment tracking, particularly in support of some of our key process improvement initiatives,” said Schade. “A logical next step, for example, would be to capture data on how long patients are in different areas and use what we learn to further identify new ways to improve the patient experience.”
“Ms. Schade and her team are always looking for a new problem to solve using our technology – and we couldn’t be more delighted,” said Manuel Lowenhaupt, MD, Radianse president and CEO. “For all Radianse clients, our mission is to find new and compelling ways to use our real-time location and patented alerts capabilities to improve care. Everything we learn and do adds value to the overall Radianse Reveal suite.”
About Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is a 747-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org.
About Radianse
Radianse, Inc. provides asset/patient tracking and workflow/analytics solutions for healthcare. Radianse Reveal applications and tools are optimized for the Radianse real-time location platform. Hospitals use Radianse Reveal to see, analyze and respond to care as it happens, improving quality, safety and opportunities to reduce costs and increase revenue. For more information about Radianse, go to www.radianse.com
SOURCE: Brigham and Women’s Hospital