RFID for Hospital Patient Safety

In the emergency ward of the hospital in Treviglio, Italy, the patient is localized by an RFID system along the diagnostic-therapeutic procedures.

The hospital at Treviglio-Caravaggio has become, in the past years, a point of reference in the low Bergamo area near Milan, recording a constant increase in the patients' flow of 10% to 20%. The hospital staff consists of 1,000 employees (doctors, nurses, technical staff, rehabilitation and administrative personnel), while the First Aid has 55,000 admissions per year, with a mean of 3/4 performances per patient.

Such growth in the amount of patients has caused new patient management issues, whose safety is always the main concern. The RFID solution powered by Siced, a certificated reseller of Softwork (www.rf-id.it), aims to ensure the immediate traceability and localization of the patient along the diagnostic-therapeutic procedures within the First Aid (Emergency Room), identifying his/her presence in different departments (i.e., radiology, orthopedics, pediatrics), and the related results.

An RFID antenna reads a signal from an RFID tag worn around the neck.

Operative procedure

The application makes use of the active RFID technology by Softwork to localize the patients in the First Aid areas. At the reception area, the patient is given an active tag affixed to a badge that the patient carries on his or her neck. The tag, according to the passage sequences set at the entrance of each strategic point, allows identifying the patient's exact position. The localization function that can occur for each patient or for each department is particularly valuable.

At the reception, the patient is processed by the first aid management and given an active RFID tag to allow tracing in the First Aid area, thanks to eight RFID readers set up at passageways. There is a triage where the patients are divided into urgency classes according to the disease or injury severity. The system is able to identify where individual patients are by checking the sequences through the different passageways.

When the patient is discharged, all of the his or her data are saved and recorded in the database, allowing staff to trace back the patient's history. Meanwhile, the tag is dissociated from that patient so that it is ready to be given to a new user.

The advantages

The RFID solution has many more important benefits. First of all, it allows tracing back the history of the route followed by the patient, verifying the situation of the missing patients. It is also used by the hospital staff to control selected accesses since the RFID system is also integrated with alarms and/or door opening devices.

The use of active RFID allows monitoring the position of the patients without interfering with and disturbing the activities of the First Aid. This is valuable, especially when it is necessary to act promptly in order to save lives. The interaction with the First Aid management can provide the latter with the real number of patients waiting for specific treatments, avoiding the queue at the reception of every single department. The RFID mission can be best expressed as major safety, patient identification speed, and reliable and efficient technological support.

RFID technological architecture

The RFID application architecture implemented at the hospital of Treviglio is made of Reader I-port 3 and tags ID-2 of Identec Solutions, distributed in Italy by Softwork. The Reader I-port 3 belongs to the latest generation of active RFID devices by Softwork that, using advanced technology of UHF band radio transmission, allows continuously integrating the information contained in the Tag i-D2 with the central management system. The information is available in real-time where and when it is necessary with the possibility to record up to 2,000 messages per unit, avoiding wasting any data. The Tag i-D2 transmits and receives data from a distance of six meters and the autonomy is up to six years.

Achieved goal

RFID added value is evident in terms of First Aid patient management. The main goal has been achieved: guaranteeing the patient safety in such a critical area. As well as providing the immediate localization of the patient, the other goal achieved thanks to RFID is the control of the time taken to cross the clinic area in comparison to the planned time, identifying possible procedure slowdown. Subsequently, this generates another operative advantage: the patient management speed allows the hospital staff time saved so that they can focus on the patient treatment.

Last but not least, the modular open RFID technology can be used in the future also to support the patient family, giving a more human touch to the hospital structure. A monitor in the waiting room can project the identification number or the chromatic code associated with the patient (the patient's name will not appear in order to protect his/her privacy), allowing his/her family having immediate and reliable information about the state of their relative.