22
7 Reasons Why Hospitals Implement RAIN RFID Solutions ™
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 1 ™
7 Reasons Why Hospitals Implement RAIN RFID Solutions
™
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 2 ™
Table of Contents
What is RAIN RFID
Impinj Knows RAIN RFID
Why Use RAIN RFID in Healthcare
RAIN RFID Identifies, Tracks and Locates Assets
RAIN RFID Frees Staff to Focus on Patient Care
RAIN RFID Improves Supply Chain Management
RAIN RFID Enhances Patient Care
RAIN RFID Improves Inventory Management
RAIN RFID Enables Wireless Temperature Sensing
RAIN RFID Improves Revenue Capture
Conclusion
03
07
09
11
04
13
15
17
18
19
05
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 3 ™
What is RAIN RFID?
RAIN RFID is a wireless technology that connects everyday items to the internet. By enabling businesses and consumers to identify, locate, authenticate, and engage each of those items, RAIN RFID demonstrates the power and value of the Internet of Things while improving and enriching the lives of millions of people worldwide.
RAIN, like RFID, is an acronym for radio frequency Identification. It was coined by a global alliance that promotes the adoption of passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID technology as a universal standard. The word RAIN is a simple phrase that embodies this standard, much as the term Bluetooth popularized a different technology standard.
Using low-cost RAIN endpoint ICs, connectivity readers and gateways, RAIN RFID technology can uniquely identify thousands of individual items simultaneously, tell where each one is located, and report its current condition, status, and availability. Software can automatically transmit that data to the cloud or hosted applications, where it can be stored, managed, and shared.
Today, RAIN RFID is revolutionizing the way organizations from retail stores to airlines to factories conduct their business. The innovative technology is also transforming how hospitals and healthcare organizations manage their inventory, assets, and supply chain to reduce costs and provide high-quality patient care.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 4 ™
Impinj Knows RAIN RFID
Businesses in a growing array of industries, such as healthcare, retail and manufacturing, rely on RAIN RFID solutions from Impinj and its partners to help them:
• manage their inventory, assets, and supply chains more efficiently and cost-effectively; • use data analytics to inform their strategic planning and day-to-day operations; and • deliver better patient care and customer experiences.
Impinj, Inc. holds the #1 market share in the RAIN RFID (radio frequency identification) industry for tag chips, reader chips and fixed readers. Working with a global network of partners, Impinj provides a high-performing RAIN RFID platform that powers application solutions and real-time location systems (RTLS) to organizations around the world.
To learn more about Impinj, visit www.impinj.com
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 5 ™
Why Use RAIN RFID in Healthcare?
Running a hospital and providing outstanding patient care is an enormous logistical challenge. It’s also expensive.
As healthcare expenses rise, hospitals are under increasing pressure to reduce costs while continuing to deliver quality patient care. As a result, hospitals today are seeking new and better ways to streamline operations, use equipment and staff more efficiently, and improve the accuracy of their billing to increase revenues.
Many hospitals rely on barcoding and other labor-intensive processes to track and manage medical equipment and supplies, patient records, medications, and more. But these manual processes waste staff time and divert attention from providing high-quality patient care—the primary focus of every hospital. In addition, these methods are prone to error and often lead to inaccurate measurements and flawed data, because they rely on busy staff members who must manage many other priorities.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 6 ™
Today, RAIN RFID is helping hospitals worldwide transform their operations by increasing efficiency, cutting costs, and improving patient care. Keep reading to discover why so many hospitals are deploying RAIN RFID solutions and real-time location systems.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 7 ™
Hospitals must keep track of an incredible amount of medical equipment and supplies. Many of these assets, including patient-monitoring devices, wheelchairs, mobile workstations, stretchers, portable X-ray machines, infusion pumps, and wearables, are very expensive.
Because medical equipment continually moves from place to place within the hospital based on the needs of patients and staff, it’s easy for some of these devices to get lost or misplaced.
Yet, accidental loss is only part of the story. Theft is also a serious and costly problem for hospitals. AMR Research estimates that between 10 percent and 20 percent of a typical hospital’s mobile assets are lost or stolen during their useful life, at an average cost of nearly $3,000 per item.
Hospitals must then lease new equipment, which can cost hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars annually.
RAIN RFID Identifies, Tracks and Locates Assets
1
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 8 ™
A large cancer hospital and research center that spends hundreds of millions
of dollars each year on medications, medical equipment, and surgical supplies
needed an efficient and fully automated way to keep track of its vast array
of assets. Lack of accurate, real-time visibility into inventory was creating
inefficiency and causing unnecessary waste. The hospital’s existing systems
and processes also failed to provide adequate security for high- cost assets.
RAIN RFID automates inventory tracking. Tagging assets individually and
installing RAIN RFID readers or gateways at key locations throughout the
facility allows hospital staff to identify, locate, and track items in real time
with up to 99 percent accuracy. With this automated, always-on inventory
system, staff always know exactly where each asset is located and
whether it is currently in use or available. RAIN RFID also enables better
security for hospital assets and reduces unnecessary replacement of
expensive equipment.
Case Study
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 9 ™
At many hospitals and medical centers, nurses might as well be called “hunters & gatherers” because they spend so much of their time searching for medical equipment and supplies.
According to multiple surveys and reports, nurses spend up to 30 percent of their time searching for equipment, which is a poor use of resources and a waste of valuable medical staff. In 2015, for example, Hospital & Healthcare Management reported that in a single week, hospital staff can spend up to $7,000 in clinical time searching for just one $150 wheelchair.
Using RAIN RFID to track supplies and assets means that staff can spend less time conducting inventory or searching for lost items and more time caring for patients. A RAIN RFID solution provides a comprehensive picture of the hospital’s inventory, including item status, expiration dates, and usage history, all without relying on time-consuming manual processes.
RAIN RFID Frees Staff to Focus on Patient Care
2
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 10 ™
As a result, hospital operations are more efficient and cost-effective, and staff can spend more time with patients, assessing their health problems, providing guidance and support, and performing post-operational monitoring. In this way, the hospital provides higher quality healthcare for its patients.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 11 ™
Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are big business on a global scale. The counterfeit drug market generates sales of $200 billion a year, outpacing almost everything else in the underground economy, from prostitution to the sale of illegal weapons.
Fake medications are also a serious threat to patient health and safety. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 10 percent of the drugs sold internationally are counterfeit. In some countries, that number can be as high as 50 percent.
Although the risk of counterfeit drugs is lower in developed countries, the United States is not immune to the problem. Between 2010 and 2016, the FDA received nearly 1,400 reports of adverse reactions related to counterfeit drugs, according to data compiled by FDAble, a company that tracks negative reactions caused by medications and medical devices. But those reports don’t tell the whole story. Most people don’t know when they are using counterfeit medications. And if they suffer an adverse reaction, they rarely suspect that a fake drug could be the source of the problem.
RAIN RFID Improves Supply Chain Management
3
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 12 ™
In a world with such high levels of drug counterfeiting, hospitals need a way to authenticate pharmaceuticals to ensure patient safety.
By working with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies, and using a RAIN RFID platform to tag and trace drugs across the entire supply chain, hospitals can be assured the medications they give their patients are authentic. They can also use RAIN RFID to gain real-time data on critical storage parameters such as temperature and moisture levels, and configure their RAIN RFID solutions to alert them to conditions that could threaten medication quality.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 13 ™
RAIN RFID Enhances Patient Care
In May 2016, patient safety experts at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine published a study suggesting that medical errors are the third-leading cause of death in the United States, with only heart disease and cancer accounting for more fatalities each year. The researchers also concluded that systemic problems, not bad doctors, are the cause for most medical errors.
Misidentification of drugs can have serious consequences. For instance, a dialysis patient in Florida suffered a cardiac arrest and died after he was accidentally given a lethal dose of a drug that causes paralysis instead of the antacid his doctor prescribed for an upset stomach. The nurse who administered the medication cited the similar packaging as the reason for the mistake.
4
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 14 ™
When drugs carry RAIN RFID endpoint ICs that identify them, patients don’t have to rely on healthcare professionals to identify drugs by their appearance or the type of container they come in. By scanning a drug’s tag, a staff member can access all relevant information about the medication and verify that it is the correct drug to administer to the patient.
Misidentification of blood types is also a serious danger in health centers; giving a patient the wrong blood type in a transfusion can be fatal. Using RAIN RFID to identify blood containers can help. A hospital staff member can conduct a final scan of the tag on a blood container to verify the blood type. In the same way, RAIN RFID can also prevent misidentification of other substances the hospital uses to treat patients.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 15 ™
RAIN RFID Improves Inventory Management
Hospitals have massive inventories of consumable supplies with diverse expiration dates. Because of this, many products are simply thrown away unused. By tagging consumables with RAIN RFID, hospitals can not only eliminate manual inventory processes that waste time, but reduce costs of wasted inventory, and also enjoy greater inventory accuracy to make better use of their consumables.
Drugs can be tagged with their national drug codes (NDCs), and LOT numbers, which denote the specific batch of the drug, and may contain their expiration dates. When items are inventoried using RAIN RFID readers or gateways, software can issue alerts about which products are recalled, expired or nearing expiration. This allows staff to remove all compromised items before they are used, and make sure that using soon-to-be-expired products is prioritized over the use of other products.
5
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 16 ™
Tagging consumables with RAIN RFID also means that hospitals can move toward vendor-managed inventory, in which the vendor places products in the hospital and retains ownership of those products until they are used.
In this model, the hospital pays only for the products it uses, which reduces inventory costs. And because responsibility for maintaining inventory remains with the vendor, the hospital spends less time managing and ordering products.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 17 ™
RAIN RFID Enables Wireless Temperature Sensing
Storing pharmaceuticals, tissues, organs, vaccines, reagents, biohazard material, and other consumables at the proper temperatures and humidity levels is crucial to hospital operations. If a single material is not properly stored, it can endanger lives, cost a hospital millions of dollars, and destroy its reputation.
Despite the importance of accurately monitoring temperature and humidity, most hospitals continue to rely on manual documentation, which is time-consuming and subject to human error.
RAIN RFID-enabled sensors placed inside refrigerators can help to ensure that consumables are not compromised, by transmitting radio signals that include environmental data to RAIN RFID readers and gateways. Integrated software can then issue alerts to staff members when temperature or humidity exceeds software-programmed thresholds and threatens the viability of sensitive materials.
6
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 18 ™
RAIN RFID Improves Revenue Capture
Supplies, consumables, and assets used during patient care must be associated with a patient’s medical record so that the patient and insurance company can be billed appropriately. In many organizations today this is a manual and error-prone process that leads to missed opportunities to capture charges. When a patient isn’t charged for something, the hospital can’t get paid for it. Given the razor-thin margins at which many hospitals operate, every item and every dollar counts.
RAIN RFID-enabled solutions employed at the point-of-use, such as readers and smart trash cans, capture information about items as they are unpackaged and used, allowing clinicians to easily associate items to a specific patient. This data is integrated into the hospital’s finance and billing systems, enabling accurate charge capture and invoicing.
7
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 19 ™
Keeping patient rooms in use as much as possible also allows a hospital to keep revenue high. When a patient is discharged, it’s important to limit the time that their room is unoccupied as much as possible. When hospitals rely on manual processes to notify environmental services that a room is ready for cleaning, delays are inevitable and costly. With RAIN-RFID enabled capacity management systems, when a patient who’s been discharged exits the hospital through a RAIN RFID-enabled zone, teams can be instantly notified that their room is available for cleaning or a new occupant.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 20 ™
Conclusion
By using the Impinj platform, healthcare and life sciences organizations can accurately and efficiently manage assets, track supplies and understand patient flow and staff movements. Analysis of this information can be used to streamline processes, reduce waste, reduce capital expenses on assets, improve patient and staff satisfaction and, most importantly, to improve patient outcomes.
As pressures on healthcare organizations increase, those looking to use technology to automate processes, increase efficiencies, reduce costs and improve patient and staff satisfaction should look at RAIN RFID as an enabling technology for digital transformation.
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 21 ™
In summary, hospitals can gain the following value from RAIN RFID solutions:
• Identify, track and locate assets • Free staff to focus on patient care • Improve supply chain management• Enhance patient care • Improve inventory management• Enable wireless temperature sensing
Learn More
• Read more stories about RAIN RFID in healthcare• Read the Impinj Healthcare Brochure• Watch the “Improve Patient Outcomes with RAIN RFID” Webinar • Talk to an expert about your RAIN RFID use case
7 REASONS WHY HOSPITALS IMPLEMENT RAIN RFID SOLUTIONS 22 ™
Impinj (NASDAQ: PI) wirelessly connects billions of everyday items such as apparel, medical supplies, automobile parts, luggage and food to consumer and business applications such as inventory management, patient safety, asset tracking and item authentication. The Impinj platform uses RAIN RFID to deliver timely information about these items to the digital world, thereby enabling the Internet of Things.
Ready to discuss how the Impinj Platform can help your business?
CONTACT US / WWW.IMPINJ.COM
© Impinj, Inc. 2017. Impinj, Monza, Item Ingelligence, Speedway, xArray, Indy, ItemSense, ItemEncode are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Impinj, Inc. Please see www.impinj.com/trademarks for full list.
TM
