Hospitals Extend RFID and RTLS to New Applications

As service organizations driven by process efficiency and patient safety, hospitals have been an "early adopter" of RTLS and RFID asset tracking.   Early applications included monitoring the location of medical equipment in patient rooms, as well as monitoring patients and medical staff. 

Now primary care providers are deploying RFID asset tracking in more diversified settings and applications, from inventory management of consumables and supplies to process compliance in central sterile and in-house testing labs. 

Common RFID-enabled processes in Hospitals include:

• Specimen Tracking
• Managing Medication Across Multiple Supply Locations
• Surgical Instrument Processing

Surgical instrument processing is well suited to RFID automation, which enables error proofing the intake, inspection, sterilization and kitting of surgical instruments and scopes, as illustrated below:

Automating a Medical Scope Tracking Process with RFID