Ongoing loss and replacement of these durable assets can become a large cost burden on hospitals and biomedical equipment suppliers, with even small-to mid-size hospitals reporting the loss of dozens of units per year. The typical replacement cost of a cardiac telemetry transponder can range from $2,500 to $7,500; pulse oximeter probes are in the $100-$200 range. Protecting these assets with a passive RFID-based Asset Rescue will reduce or eliminate this loss and associated financial impact.

In this application, assets at risk of accidental discard are tagged and protected with passive RFID tags. One or more fixed RFID readers are deployed at places in the facility where laundry is processed (either in-house or dispatch to a laundry service) and trash is handled. The system is parameterized with the RFID tag identities of the tagged assets (either individually or by a range of identities, depending on user application requirements). One or more detection zones are logically defined at the laundry and trash egress doorways and routes.

Interested in finding out how you cut down on loss? Read our Mobile Asset Rescue for Biomedical Equipment Solutions Paper.

Some takeaways from the event… it seems that there are enough forces to motivate the market away from WiFi solutions. Second, creative funding models are really what are helping the adoption of enterprise solutions along with managed services. The shift away from capitalized purchases for RTLS and RFID systems may be what moves deployments of these solutions out of the early adopter realm.

The other take away is that passive RFID definitely has a place in healthcare. We heard some compelling case studies regarding high impact, yet lower tech applications of more traditional (if there is such a thing) passive RFID. So even thought there are massive initiatives for enterprise RFID based on active technologies, customers are getting great return from less pervasive and more specific passive technologies. UMass Memorial has such an initiative in the Cath and EP labs. Also, Ray Lowe, the IS Director of Providence Health (a major west coast hospital group) talked about how he will be using Reva Systems (make applications to manage and integrate RFID readers) and ThingMagic (makes readers) as part of workflow in a new facility that will have a WiFi-based RTLS system.

The real story here is that no one auto-ID or location-based solution is going to fit all needs within the enterprise. And that’s not a bad thing. Continued innovation and product maturity, along with more open systems are making this all doable. For hospitals, there are opportunities small and large to take advantage of RFID and RTLS to immediately impact productivity and the bottom line.