HIMSS: Hospital Smart Room promises to improve safety, efficiency
ORLANDO, Fla.--A Hospital Smart Room that leverages radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology to optimize medical device connectivity could deliver improvements in patient safety as exemplified in a demonstration at the 2011 annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Developed by the RFID and Healthcare Consortium, Hospital Smart Room enables optimal dissemination of patient information by integrating real-time data from multiple patient, staff, device and medication RFID tags and displaying data on large flat panel monitors, tablet computers and handheld devices. The integrated technologies enable monitoring of real time and missed or bypassed activities to enhance patient safety.
The simulation focused on two patient scenarios: a high acuity patient with type 2 diabetes and a lower acuity mother and newborn. The room incorporates a weight-monitoring smart bed integrated with the nurse call and physiological monitoring systems.
Staff, who wear RFID-equipped badges, are tracked as they enter the patient room. An RFID Hand Hygiene station sounds an alert if a staff member enters the room without complying with hand hygiene measures. Similarly, medical devices such as IV pumps are linked to each specific patient via RFID.
During the scenario, a nurse received a message via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), alerting her that a patient’s lab value had exceeded the critical value. She acknowledged receipt of the message with a secure text message and used the same infrastructure to communicate with a physician for the medication order. The next steps entailed dispensing the medication from an RFID-equipped medication cabinet and administering the medication after swiping the patient’s wristband and drug to ensure that the right drug went to the right patient.
Similarly, a newborn infant’s RFID tag is linked to the mother’s, enabling an alert if the baby is placed with the wrong mother or an unauthorized person attempts to move the baby from the mother’s room.
Technologies utilized in the prototype included: Ruckless' wireless technology, Hill-Rom's Smart Bed and Nurse Call systems, GE Healthcare's Physiological monitoring system, Patient Safe medication administration and nursing intervention systems, Visonic Technologies' mother-baby matching system, and Wavemark's Supply Chain Management technology.
Developed by the RFID and Healthcare Consortium, Hospital Smart Room enables optimal dissemination of patient information by integrating real-time data from multiple patient, staff, device and medication RFID tags and displaying data on large flat panel monitors, tablet computers and handheld devices. The integrated technologies enable monitoring of real time and missed or bypassed activities to enhance patient safety.
The simulation focused on two patient scenarios: a high acuity patient with type 2 diabetes and a lower acuity mother and newborn. The room incorporates a weight-monitoring smart bed integrated with the nurse call and physiological monitoring systems.
Staff, who wear RFID-equipped badges, are tracked as they enter the patient room. An RFID Hand Hygiene station sounds an alert if a staff member enters the room without complying with hand hygiene measures. Similarly, medical devices such as IV pumps are linked to each specific patient via RFID.
During the scenario, a nurse received a message via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), alerting her that a patient’s lab value had exceeded the critical value. She acknowledged receipt of the message with a secure text message and used the same infrastructure to communicate with a physician for the medication order. The next steps entailed dispensing the medication from an RFID-equipped medication cabinet and administering the medication after swiping the patient’s wristband and drug to ensure that the right drug went to the right patient.
Similarly, a newborn infant’s RFID tag is linked to the mother’s, enabling an alert if the baby is placed with the wrong mother or an unauthorized person attempts to move the baby from the mother’s room.
Technologies utilized in the prototype included: Ruckless' wireless technology, Hill-Rom's Smart Bed and Nurse Call systems, GE Healthcare's Physiological monitoring system, Patient Safe medication administration and nursing intervention systems, Visonic Technologies' mother-baby matching system, and Wavemark's Supply Chain Management technology.