ASSET TRACKING/SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT


rather than one owned by the Trust. When it was time to return a hired mattress a staff member had to physically check the serial number, which was intrusive for patients and time-consuming for the staff concerned. Andy Barrow, EME Service manager, comments: “Now we can identify hired mattresses quickly with a simple RFID scan without disturbing patients. This saves a huge amount of time, and has delivered significant savings by avoiding late return fines and unnecessary rental charges.”


Planning demand for beds With an acute shortage of beds at the East Kent Trust, Andy Barrow says he was ‘particularly keen to implement better ways to ensure there are enough beds available or, alternatively, to highlight when further beds need to be purchased to meet growing demands’. To manage this process, he has set up high and low tolerances for specific locations in his RFID system, which means an alert is raised if there are not enough or too many beds in one place.


Foam mattress management Andy Barrow also sees a particular benefit from tagging foam mattresses, which have historically not been managed as well as they could have been. He explains: “Foam mattresses are an ongoing challenge. Using passive fabric tags will allow us to keep our inventory up to date for each area, make it easier to get funding when new mattresses are needed, and enable us to record the mattress age, history, and a full maintenance record.” Tagging foam mattresses will also allow staff to scan and identify contaminated mattresses without touching them, which has huge benefits for infection control.


RFID tracking at NHS Forth Valley More evidence of successful bed and mattress management with RFID comes from NHS Forth Valley in Scotland, another pioneer of active and passive RFID technology in the healthcare sector. In June 2014, Bryan Hynd, head of Medical Physics at Forth Valley Royal Hospital (FVRH), implemented an active RFiD Discovery system for mobile medical devices including 860 beds, trolleys, and cots, with an extensive network of 170 readers tracking locations in real time. At the same time, the Trust started replacing existing asset labels to incorporate passive RFID tags for all medical devices, including beds. To date approximately 10,000 of NHS Forth Valley’s 14,000 devices have been tagged.


Reducing rental costs NHS Forth Valley uses around 150 dynamic mattresses, the majority rental units. Dynamic mattresses come in two


56 Health Estate Journal August 2018


An active tag on a Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust spinal bed; the Trust is using an RFiD Discovery system to track the movements of 846 beds.


parts: the main mattress, and the pump, which is usually clipped at the foot end of the bed. It is not uncommon for the pump to get separated from the actual mattress when a mattress is moved. Bryan Hynd says: “Previously, if a mattress was due to be collected by the hire company and the matching pump could not be found, the company couldn’t collect the mattress and we had to continue paying hire charges. Tagging both parts individually means that if the two parts become separated, both can be located easily to avoid unnecessary rental costs.” It was also previously difficult to identify a mattress if it was in use by a patient; ‘in some cases it was simply impossible to check without moving the patient, which is rarely practical’. Now there is complete visibility of mattress locations, current and historical. Bryan Hynd explains: “This accurate usage data has enabled us to prove that it is more cost-effective to buy additional mattresses than continuing to hire them, helping to further reduce overall costs.”


Managing contractors


NHS Forth Valley hires all its beds, and tagging all rental units has enabled the Trust to lower the overall requirement and therefore reduce ad-hoc rentals to reduce costs. Tracking the accurate location of beds has further allowed NHS Forth Valley to ensure that bed contractors are adhering to agreed service levels – by highlighting any potential shortfalls. For example, the system gives visibility if any bed has been waiting too long for repair or cleaning, and is thus unavailable for use by patients. In addition, the bed contractor benefits, as its task of servicing and repair is simplified via the ability to locate beds easily and quickly.


A passive GS1-compliant RFID label of the type used by CUH in Cambridge.


Specialist beds


The positive experience of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) is a great example of using RFID technology to improve the management of specialist beds. CUH is one of the UK’s largest and best-known hospital Trusts, and has been one of the pioneers of active and passive RFID for asset tracking. In 2015 it became the UK’s first NHS Trust to introduce GS1 standards to track 37,500 medical devices using passive RFID, which, in April 2017, helped it secure the runner-up position in the prestigious first Lord Carter Innovation Award (HEJ – June 2017).


With a large site and a total of 1,200 beds it is near enough impossible to go around the hospital every day to check how each specialist bed is used. Thanks to an RFiD Discovery system, however, a network of around 100 active readers provides real-time visibility of bed locations, including those of hired and specialist devices. As a Fall Prevention co- ordinator at CUH, Debbie Quartermaine is responsible for ensuring that suitable equipment and processes are in place to avoid patient falls and investigating any incidents that occur. She says: “Thanks to the integration of our e-Quip asset management database with our RFID system I can see which patient is using an ultra-low bed. The record allows me to assess if each patient on an ultra-low bed actually requires this specialist device. This ensures that ultra-low beds are only used when necessary, so they can be available for patients who genuinely need them.”


Special rental agreements CUH uses a bed hire company to provide ultra-low beds, and there are approximately eight on site at any one time. Normally hire companies have a standard charge, and rental fees apply whether a bed is in use or not. However, thanks to the accurate and timely data from its tracking system, CUH has been able to negotiate a special arrangement


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72