Within the scope of The Health Transformation Program of Turkish Ministry of Health, Mersin Integrated Healthcare Campus has been constructed and operating since February 2017. In order to manage the enormous amount of assets (more than 200.000) of the hospital, Borda Technology has implemented a RFID solution.
Challenge
The hospital, Mersin Integrated Healthcare Campus, is built on an area of 232.000 m2 and has a capacity of 1296 beds in various hospitals and healthcare departments. The challenge was to have a solution which provided a manageable asset inventory, speed up operations, enhance asset utilization and increase awareness on asset inventory. They would like to know the location of an asset at zonal level and room level.
Solution
Because of the complex architecture of the hospital, there was setup a team of professionals. The team decided how to tag the different types of assets, what type of tag to use and on what part of the asset the tag should be attached to, to give the best RF read performance. Also the team decided how to divide the hospital into passive zones considering the hospital architecture and departments, so that the Passive Zonal Tracking can work most efficiently and locations of the assets can be tracked.
Manage over 200.000 assets
The most suitable RFID hardware was chosen. One of the most important selection, was the selection of tags. Since especially biomedical devices get exposed to cleaning with disinfection sprays, tags needed to be IP68 standard as well as being durable enough. Borda’s tag selection was perfectly matching these requirements. In total there were installed over 200.000 Omni ID UHF RFID tags. For the other hardware, Borda Technology used 300 Impinj xArray UHF RFID Fixed Readers provided by distributor of RFID products Cisper. Also they used 16 Zebra Handheld Readers and 16 Zebra Mobile Computers.
Hospital zones
In order to create zones in the hospital, passive RFID readers were placed in spots that could work as a gate from one zone to another. The readers were installed behind the ceilings so they weren’t visible. Passive RFID antennas were placed surface mounted.
In total, there were created 150 zones in the hospital. At the zones, tags are read by the RFID readers. Also the tags on the assets can be read by handheld readers in the entire hospital.
Borda’s Lighthouse software platform
Software related configuration and customization was done on the Borda’s Lighthouse software platform. Lighthouse provides a complete IoT Healthcare Solution. All of the tagged assets have been registered into Lighthouse and the data is being transformed into manageable information for the hospital staff. With the Lighthouse Software platform, hospital staff can make determinations about the current situation and processes in the hospital based on real and updated data.
Result
Due to RFID, the asset inventory in the hospital can be counted in one day. Hospital personal can check the maintenance- and calibration status of assets, within a couple of minutes at each patient room or operating room. Asset related situations and processes in the hospital are measurable, analyzable and interpretable due to the use of RFID.
After the Mersin hospital, Borda Technology implemented RFID successfully in the Yozgat Training and Research Hospital, a hospital with a bed capacity of 475. Also they won the Best RFID Implementation in Healthcare Award at RFID Journal Live 2018 in Orlando, with the RFID project in Adana Integrated Health Campus.
About
Borda Technology is a product and solution development and system integration company specialized in RFID Real Time Location Systems, asset management, stock and inventory management and business analytics.