The Virtual Medical Device Library Roger Willmott CEO, Airetrak

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The Virtual Medical Device LibraryRoger
WillmottCEO, Airetrak Jason Britton, Clinical
Scientist, Royal Alexandra Hospital
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About Airetrak

• UK based solutions provider
• tracking solution developed for the UK NHS
• market leader with almost 10 of NHS hospitals
• Solution designed for purpose
• functionality built in for hospital benefits
  (e.g. PPM interfaces, bed management, temperature
  monitoring, infection control)
• tag independent solution not tied to any
  specific supplier
• Strong customer focus
• UK based Research Development
• Work closely with and listen to our customers
• Responsive to their requirements

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Why are hospitals interested in equipment
tracking?

• Increasing government pressure to improve patient
  care whilst reducing spending
• A key area of inefficiency and cost in a typical
  UK hospital is the process of locating and
  tracking key assets
• The financial impact can be split into three key
  areas
• patient care and safety
• equipment utilisation
• staff productivity

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Why Wi-Fi based tracking?
A number of factors have converged to make WiFi
tracking an attractive proposition for many UK
hospitals

• Technology standardisation active tags will now
  run over standard 802.11 Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi)
  networks, avoiding expensive proprietary
  infrastructure costs
• Technology advances technological improvements
  have reduced the tag size significantly,
  increased the battery life and reduced cost
• General WiFi adoption most UK Trusts have
  implemented Wi-Fi, or have it in their immediate
  spending plans

A Wi-Fi based solution can be up to 80 cheaper
than traditional RFID location solutions
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Justification for using using Wireless ?
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How does a Wi-Fi based tracking solution work?
Tracking Application
Tagged Resources and Wireless Devices
Centralised 802.11 Wireless LAN
Bio-Medical Equipment
Hospital Assets
WLAN Controller
Staff/Patients /Babies

• Searching, Reporting and Alerting capability
• Other NHS specific applications
• Easy to use, intuitive web based interface
• Telephone front end (using speech recognition)
• Integration with 3rd party systems such as asset
  management (Optim, SEMS etc)

Laptops
Wireless Control System
Access Points
Mobile Clinical Assistants (MCAs)
Location Appliance
Wi-Fi phones/PDAs
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What functionality can it provide apart from
location?

• Motion Sensors
• Call Buttons
• Temperature Sensors
• Choke Point/Exciter support
• Passive RFID support
• Tags in Medical Equipment and laptops

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How is it used in the NHS?

• Locating equipment for Planned Preventative
  Maintenance
• Tracking rental equipment/rental avoidance
• Locating specialist equipment
• Patient workflow and alerting when patients
  wander
• Notifying of theft
• Monitoring fridge/drug/blood temperature
• Bed Management
• Virtual Equipment Library, such as Royal
  Alexandra Hospital

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Royal Alexandra Hospital

• Part of NHS Greater Glasgow Clyde Health Board
• A district general hospital with approximately
  650 in-patient beds
• Located west of Glasgow
• Serves a population of 200,000 people
• Provides a full range of medical services

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The Challenge

• Lightweight portable medical devices
• Difficult to locate
• Clinical
• Technical
• Significant lost time
• Portfolio of equipment does not match operational
  requirement
• Potential clinical issues

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Standard Equipment Library

• Management, administration record keeping
  overheads
• Out-of-hours access issues
• RAH
• No appropriate space
• Focused on clinical services
• Alternative solution required

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An RFID Solution - why??

• No dedicated library space required
• Improve medical equipment utilisation
• Better availability of devices - 24/7
• Clinical
• Improved compliance with scheduled inspection
  targets
• Reduce time wasted locating equipment
• Saves time, effort and money

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Solution Overview

• First in Scotland
• Full pilot study undertaken
• 802.11 (a/b/g) - Cisco wireless access points
  installed in
• 7 acute inpatient wards
• Accident Emergency
• Medical Physics
• Specific design rules required for RFID
• Fitted to the ceilings on each of the floors
• Triangulated coverage

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Positioning of Access Points
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Active Tags

• Portable medical devices fitted with active RFID
  tags.
• Tags were attached using non-corrosive silicon
  sealant
• Makes a good seal with the casing of the device
• Meets infection control requirements
• Difficult to remove
• Inexpensive

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Airetrak ResourceView

• Management platform collects all location data
• Triangulated location via wireless platform
• Firewalled from medical network
• Simple, secure web-based view access for medical
  staff
• Can be easily interrogated to show the location
  of
• Portable medical devices
• Tags individually or attached to devices
• Laptops and other mobile wireless devices

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Device Location
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Current Position

• Pilot completed successfully
• Benefits achieved
• Full clinical backing for expanded deployment
• System expanded to include additional 7 wards
• Early days, however ..
• Data also being used for patient time-motion
  studies
• Medical Physics alone projecting 10,000 annual
  savings
• Much greater cost saving extrapolated
• System proposed for two new Outpatient Hospitals
  in Glasgow
• Wi-fi network will be used to provide other
  benefits
• Wi-Fi Phone communications
• Data Information transfer access to Clinical
  applications

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Objectives for today

• To give you
• A concise overview
• Update you on developments
• Answer any questions you have

Jason.Britton_at_nhs.net, Roger.Willmott_at_airetrak.com