RFiD Discovery, the leading provider of RFID tracking solutions to UK healthcare, has completed a successful pilot project to test read rates of PervasID’s pioneering Space Ranger 9200 RFID reader at NHS Forth Valley.
For the trial, the new wide-area UHF passive RFID reader was installed in the Medical Physics workshop at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, where repairs, maintenance tasks, acceptance testing, commissioning and decommissioning take place.
During the pilot a total of 108 devices fitted with a passive RFID tag were scanned into the test location with a handheld scanner. Individual devices were then removed from the room and later brought back in. During this process location data was recorded and analysis showed that every single equipment move was detected almost instantly.
Bryan Hynd, Head of Medical Physics at NHS Forth Valley, commented: “It is great to see that the reader is picking up 100% of the equipment moves quickly and accurately.”
NHS Forth Valley uses an active RFiD Discovery system to track the locations of 4,000 mobile medical devices with an extensive network of 170 readers in real time. The trust has also replaced existing asset labels to incorporate passive RFID tags for all medical devices including beds and uses an RFID trolley to carry out regular audits.
Location information from the new PervasID reader is transferred into the main RFiD Discovery database, which can be accessed by clinical and engineering staff. Bryan explained: “The main benefit for us is that clinical staff can now see if any of their equipment is in our workshop. Even though we tell ward staff when we take one of their devices, during a shift change this information is often not passed on.”
Whilst there is already an active RFID reader installed in the workshop, only 4,000 of the Trust’s medical devices are fitted with an active tag. The new reader allows NHS Forth Valley to automatically monitor if any of their 10,000 passively tagged devices are in the workshop. In addition, the tracking information provides valuable data for the Medical Physics team to show how long equipment has been waiting for repair or maintenance.
Traditionally, for passive RFID applications, gateway readers would be used to monitor the movements of equipment in and out of a specific area. However, there is a risk that tags are not being read during the short period as they pass through the doorway, for example if they are obscured by metal, water or other tags. The PervasID wide-area readers provides a significant improvement in accuracy, as it uses a number of antennas to scan an area from different angles.
