President Obama, Health Care and RFID

Now that the voters have selected Barack Obama to be the next president, we can expect him to move forward with his health plan after inauguration. What could that mean for the health care IT industry? What does RFID have to offer to help improve health care and America’s hospitals in this age of cuts, and more cuts to funding, resources and increased demand? I have a few thoughts on the subject…

One of the ways Obama has posited that he will reduce the costs of health care by $2500 per year per family, is to provide health care IT subsidy[1]. This is an excellent opportunity for health care providers to implement and RFID solution to improve patient care, reduce costs and minimize risks. Through the visibility RFID offers, health care facilities can innovatively create more efficient and productive operations with a mechanism for accountability.

Tomorrow’s blog posting will talk in more detail about how RFID will help improve the health care system, and specifically answer the concerns that some skeptics have about the detrimental effects of Obama’s health plan (as it relates to health care IT in particular) on hospital’s finances.

Real-time visibility of assets and transparency of processes will enable an economical advantage that will save money and make money across the board. At the same time, customer service will improve, satisfaction of patients, staff and physicians will improve, errors will be reduced and many other advantages will be realized.

Asset tracking and management, inventory management, patient and staff tracking, medication tracking and lab & sample tracking are they key areas where RFID will revolutionize health care practices.

Contact Dynamic at 866-257-5111 if you would like to learn more about the benefits of a scalable RFID solution from DCC. RFID demo tours are available and our knowledgeable staff will help you calculate the ROI for your particular application.

[1] Obama's plan would also reduce costs by managing disease, federalizing certain health claims and stimulating competition in the industry.

(Photo digitally altered. Downloaded from BarackObama.com)

Baby Tracking with RFID

Infant tracking with RFID is becoming more and more common as hospitals in today’s competitive environment realize the benefits. At the same time, they can give parents the peace of mind that their babies are safe at all times. (PDF)

RFID can answer the following questions in real-time:

Where is the baby?

• Ensures that each baby stays in secured locations by strategically locating RFID readers
at doorways and elevators . When a baby’s RFID signal is picked up by a reader in a restricted
area, the system notifies the staff and security in addition to locking down all doors in the facility.
• Can determine whether baby is in the mother’s room, the nursery, etc.

Who is in contact with the baby?

• RFID can provide visibility as to the contact each baby has with any number of individuals,
including clinical staff, parents and visitors. It can establish this using the associations of more than
one RFID tag being picked up by the same reader at the same time.

What treatment and medications has each baby received? Who were the attending clinicians? When was the treatment provided, etc?

• Using RFID, the chain of contact and location is established and continuously tracked for each
child during their time in the hospital.

Through this one application of a patient
tracking solution, hospitals will:

IMPROVE PATIENT CARE
• Improve Customer Service
• Ensure Positive Identification
• Integrate information with EHR
• Track babies’ contact with staff
• Monitor babies’ treatment and results

REDUCE COSTS
• Avoid legal ramification of parent trauma
• Eliminate medical errors and ADEs

MINIMIZE RISK
• Prevent child abduction
• Prevent identification errors
• Avoid non-authorized contact with babies

And once the infrastructure is in place, it is easy and relatively inexpensive to expand the tracking capabilities to include other patients, assets, inventory, medication and lab specimens – and virtually anything else.

Dynamic also provides Change Management Support for staff during the transition to RFID. We understand that change is difficult and want to make it as easy as possible for staff to adapt to the
enhanced and streamlined processes.

Call Ralph Wagner, RFID Solutions Manager, for more information at (866) 257-2111.

DCC provides RFID solutions for health care together with Change Management Support (CMS) to facilitate education, communication and transparency throughout the RFID adoption process.
Our scalable RFID solutions improve patient care, reduce costs, minimize risks and are interoperable with your existing systems.