When daily tasks are optimized and managed properly this drives major improvements in quality. The result of a well optimized hospital is improved patient throughput and reduction of costs. Now imagine if you had someone observing your life from the outside and providing input on how to optimize it. Well, in many ways radio frequency identification – or RFID – is an outside observer offering input in the form of location data, analytics and automated alerts for improvement to healthcare operations. Whether managing medical equipment on a facility level, optimizing clinical operations, or processing specimen; RFID greatly improves healthcare economics and quality of patient care. These are the 3 topics we will discuss for making improvements to patient care and cost savings below.

1. Medical Equipment Management 

For the specific use case of medical equipment management, Quake’s Intelligent Asset Manager – iAM –  can be viewed as a database of all tagged assets present within a hospital. Always-on location tracking provides accurate data for the status of each asset. This information is used to reduce unnecessary purchasing which is often a result of hoarding and unaccounted equipment. Automated alerts sent to staff prompt action for sterilization or maintenance of equipment. With medical equipment on hand and sterilized, staff focus is placed on improvements to clinical performance thanks to RFID process optimization. 

2. Clinical Workflow Performance 

That outside observer has a lot to say about clinical operations. Analytics for patient wait times assist in identifying deficiencies to improve upon. With clinical performance improved, automated alerts prompt staff to act for patient care, cleaning or other appropriate tasks. Alerts are automatically sent upon reaching a threshold in the patient wait time in between workflow steps for the improvement of patient flow. Patients don’t want to spend valuable time waiting for care and hospitals want to improve throughput, Quake’s RFID solutions deliver results. 

3. Specimen Processing & Identification 

My favorite part about RFID is the accuracy it provides to specimen processing workflows. An error in the specimen workflow means inability to diagnose, sentinel events and unnecessary costs. Quake’s solutions deliver improved processing times with 99.98% accuracy of specimen identification. Location tracking allows the hospital to receive alerts for specimen dwell time and mishandling; this allows hospital staff to take immediate action for a forgotten or misplaced specimen. Location tracking greatly reduces processing time and errors in the specimen workflow. 

RFID solutions deliver value for the first year of deployment and beyond. With rich integrations to leading IT, medical records, security, building automation and inventory management software platforms, Quake RFID is the solution to numerous healthcare operational challenges. 

For more information about RFID in healthcare visit Healthcare Solutions 

Tanner Immonen 

Marketing Coordinator 

Quake Global, Inc.