Medical technology
Improving equipment visibility The situation is improving in some areas, with Trusts leveraging an array of tracking technologies to achieve better equipment management. With full visibility of asset location, EMBE teams have improved planned preventative maintenance, reducing problems associated with equipment failure and extending the life of assets by ensuring they are in an optimal state of repair. Trusts have also improved audit trails and ensured compliance with equipment servicing requirements, further improving patient safety. The use of asset tracking technology to locate highly sought-after medical equipment has not only reduced the time to find a tagged asset2
to
less than 25 seconds and released over 140,000 hours of clinical time back to patient care but is expected to save up to £250,000 annually for each Trust by reducing the need to replace lost devices and delivering operational efficiency gains. To date, however, the use of tagging
technologies has been inconsistent throughout the NHS, reflecting the diverse levels of digital maturity. The Government’s 2023 mandate to NHS England,3
which includes a requirement for
the adoption of barcode scanning of high-risk medical devices by March 2024, is designed to accelerate the use of tracking to both improve patient safety and optimise the value of equipment.
Improving asset visibility Barcoding or the use of Quick Response (QR) codes, provides benefits, especially in areas of minimal equipment movement. For Trusts that have invested in the creation of GS1 locations, QR codes can be used to scan an entire bed bay, even an entire ward, to attain a fine-grained level of information about all the devices within that location. Within seconds, an EBME team has an accurate ward audit.
However, scanning QR codes or barcodes
requires manual intervention – and could end up being just one more task placed on overloaded nurses. It also doesn’t work efficiently for any equipment likely to move outside the ward or Emergency Department; equipment such as wheelchairs that move from one hospital within the ICS to another; or syringe pump drivers that are routinely required within the community, both in care homes and the patient homes. This is where tracking technologies that use
GPS, Wi-Fi, RFID or Bluetooth to automatically track equipment across multiple locations without requiring any manual intervention provides an opportunity to transform equipment visibility both for an individual Trust and across the entire ICS.
From infection control to business case:
community tracking in practice Gloucestershire Managed Services (GMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has piloted Idox’s dedicated solution4
for tracking BodyGuard T (formerly
T34) syringe pumps in hospitals, homes and across the community. The Medical Engineering department had been using iAssets, part of Idox’s iFIT suite of solutions, to improve the tracking, management and maintenance of medical devices across the estate. However, the team needed a dedicated solution to locate valuable BodyGuard
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Ts throughout the hospital and local community that are easily misplaced due to their portability. To determine the most appropriate tagging
technology GMS’ assessment included due diligence to prove the asset tracking tag did not cause Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) to the syringe driver, with flow rate and delivery of medicines consistent with that of a device without a tag. It also undertook a comprehensive risk assessment in line with MHRA guidance to ensure patient safety is the priority.
Steve Webb from GMS comments, “As with
many Trusts, the portability of BodyGuard T syringe drivers means that many can be misplaced around the hospital or lost within the community. As such, we needed a robust and streamlined solution to accurately track these mobile devices wherever they are used. This pilot has successfully proved the value of medical device tracking and is an important first step in mitigating any concern around EMI and using tracking tags on sensitive equipment.”
Practical steps to choosing the right tagging technology With the expanding care model associated with ICSs, it is now vital not only to track equipment as it moves between Trusts and into the community but also to understand that movement and ensure effective equipment allocation, return and management. How can a district nurse ensure quick access to equipment such as portable ultrasound machines or ECG machines? How can essential maintenance schedules be adhered to when medical assets are no longer contained within a managed Trust environment? How can the ICS ensure equipment is returned when no longer needed by a patient, rather than being permanently lost to the system?
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