RFID trial tracks hospital equipment

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is testing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to track life-saving equipment, staff and eventually even babies.

The trust is testing RFID readers at Queen’s Medical Centre to see if the technology can track equipment successfully, and reduce unnecessary purchases.

Rob Green, managing director of Isis, which developed the pilot, says the trust is testing the performance of tags attached to life-saving equipment.

‘Knowing the location of equipment in real time ensures that the hospital can get hold of it when it is needed,’ he said.

‘This could also reduce spending on extra equipment, which the hospital often purchases as a redundancy to ensure that it can access life-saving machines.’

Green says that if the pilot proves successful, RFID could be used to tag babies so they cannot be taken from the maternity ward without authorisation. It could also provide real-time location of staff in emergency departments, and track IT assets such as laptops.

The pilot uses tags and readers from Wavetrend and front-end software from Isis for tracking assets in real time. It is expected to run until early 2007.

Peter Harrop, chairman of analyst ID TechEx, says RFID is increasingly used in the NHS because it offers immediate return on investment.

He says that by tagging high-value, life-saving equipment, hospitals will be able to locate it to any ward or room.

What do you think? Email us at: feedback@computing.co.uk

Related stories

Hospital to radio-tag patients

Hospital registers a boost from RFID

Medicines could be RFID-tagged