RadarFind Corporation, a health care technology company offering a patented Real Time Location System (RTLS) for tracking medical equipment and patients, features intelligent RFID tags and readers with temperature-sensing capabilities. In addition to locating medical devices and patients, hospitals can further leverage RTLS as an essential tool to enhance patient safety, control costs and comply with regulations.
RadarFind tags and other system elements feature a high precision temperature-to-voltage converter, Microchip Technology’s TC1046 temperature sensor, embedded as standard equipment. RadarFind has used this precision component for nearly three years in gathering environmental data to monitor the system’s health, giving them extensive experience to offer hospitals who wish to collect similar data for their own purposes. The Microchip sensor offers high accuracy, a wide temperature-measurement range, and low power consumption, making these features ideal for many automatic temperature-sensing applications within hospitals.
RadarFind is working with hospitals to develop a custom application that leverages the temperature-sensing capabilities of the system to monitor refrigerators for medications and laboratory samples. In addition to enhancing patient safety and controlling costs, this feature enables hospitals to document and meet regulatory standards for maintaining consistent temperatures inside refrigerators and freezers. Cooling appliances that contain tissue samples, vaccines or other temperature-sensitive medications must be monitored, and in some cases recorded, at regular intervals.
“We are excited to partner with RadarFind as they continue to advance the quality of health care with their technology. For hospitals, temperature sensing plays a critical role in safely storing medications,” said Steve Kennelly, manager of Microchip’s Medical Products Group. “The TC1046 temperature sensor is designed for small spaces and operates at a low current to maximize battery life, making it a perfect fit for the RadarFind system.”
RadarFind tags are placed inside refrigerators or freezers to monitor temperature and provide instant notification of variances. Temperature-sensitive materials may be at risk from freezing as well as overheating, so tags monitor for a range of -40º to +40º C. If the temperature inside a refrigerator varies beyond a pre-set range, an alert is sent out according to hospital protocols. For example, alerts may be distributed via email or text to the wireless devices of specified personnel. The information is automatically logged in the RadarFind software for use in compiling reports for internal or regulatory purposes.
“The temperature-sensing feature of our tags and readers plays a significant role in alerting hospitals if their critical medications or tissue samples are compromised,” said RadarFind Chief Medical Officer, Vincent N. Carrasco, M.D. “Not only does this help hospitals control costs and comply with federal regulations, it continues to elevate their standards for patient care and safety, adding to the already established advantages of implementing the RadarFind Real Time Location System.”
Ease of Use, Infection-Control Tools and Equipment Cost Savings
The RadarFind RTLS was developed by physicians and hospital administrators after extensive research with more than 50 hospitals across the U.S. Unlike other conventional RFID and WiFi location-tracking solutions, RadarFind functions independently of a hospital’s critical IT network, requires no new wiring in patient areas and can provide room-level accuracy with no need for ongoing calibration.
RadarFind’s unique asset tag features an intrinsically safe sliding indicator that hospital staffs use to mark a piece of medical equipment’s status as available, in-use or needs cleaning/sterilization. The tags themselves include a color-coded bar, giving staff a visual cue on each tagged device to quickly determine that equipment is disinfected and available for patient use. RadarFind is the only RTLS to provide valuable, accurate three-state information about a device’s status and location history, serving as a powerful tool for health-care device management and infection control.
Readers integrate with existing hospital-grade electrical outlets and avoid interfering with hospital operations and staff processes, because there is no need to close off patient rooms during installation. The indoor tracking system determines the location of mobile medical equipment, such as IV pumps, wheelchairs and stretchers, throughout the hospital and displays this information on hospital staff’s computer screens. In less than a year after installing RadarFind, Wayne Memorial Hospital in Goldsboro, N.C. saved more than $300,000 by reducing new equipment expenditures and maintenance costs through more efficient operations. -Microchip
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
