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RFID-enabled Handheld Helps Nurses Verify Meds |
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Caregivers at St. Clair Hospital are using Socket Mobile's new SoMa 650 RFID-enabled handheld to ensure they give the right medications to patients.
July 10, 2007—Nurses and other caregivers at St. Clair Hospital are getting some help—via passive high-frequency RFID tags—in determining that the right patients are receiving the right medicine at the right dose and time and in the correct manner.
The Pittsburgh hospital is implementing Socket Mobile's new SoMa 650 handheld mobile computer, which began shipping this week, and fitted with a Socket Mobile's CompactFlash RFID Reader Series 6, a dual-function device that can read and encode 13.56 MHz RFID tags (HF ISO15693, ICode SLI/SL2, LRI512, my-d and Tag-It HF-I) and scan bar codes.
The SoMa 650, which is a Wi-Fi-enabled Pocket PC, lets nurses verify a patient's identity, by reading an RFID tag embedded in the patient's wristband, before administering medicine, says Tom Ague, COO and executive VP of St. Clair Hospital, which has 329 acute care beds and admits about 16,000 patients annually. Running on the SoMa 650 is VeriScan software from Sculptor Developmental Technologies, a subsidiary of the hospital. VeriScan is designed to run on personal digital assistants (PDAs) or mobile computers to prevent medication errors by providing nurses with pharmaceutical orders in real-time, and letting them update patients' charts right at the bedside.
St. Clair had been using VeriScan with bar-code scanners connected to laptop computers on carts, but the carts were difficult to maneuver in patient rooms. They switched to PDAs, but had some problems early on. "The screens weren't bright enough, the initial versions of the PDAs weren't ruggedized, and the network kept dropping off whenever nurses traveled from one area to another," Ague says. So about four months ago, the hospital began testing the SoMa 650, which was designed based on feedback from St. Clair Hospital and other companies, according to Peter Phillips, VP of marketing with Socket Mobile. The hospital is using popuplink Precision Dynamics' RFID-enabled patient wristbands and staff badges, and an RFID printer-encoder from Zebra.
When it is time to administer medication, nurses log in, using the RFID-enabled SoMa 650 to read the RFID tag in their badge. They then scan the bar code on the medication package (St. Clair Hospital puts bar-coded labels on all patient medications, which are put into envelopes for administration), which is then cross-checked with a back-end database to confirm the drug, specific dose and means of administration. The nurses then read the RFID tag in the patient's wristband, and the tag's unique ID number is cross-referenced with the patient information in a back-end database. Not only does patient information pop up on the SoMa 650's display screen, so does a picture of the patient, which was taken when the patient was admitted.
The device records the date and time the tags and bar codes are read, and sends all the data (bar codes, RFID tag numbers and timestamp) wirelessly to the database, where it is compared with the doctor's latest orders. Voice commands on the SoMa 650 announce, "Patient identification confirmed," or in the case of discrepancies, "Access denied." In addition, any new medication orders, order changes or cancellations are automatically downloaded so nurses know about them immediately.
"The SoMa 650 is ruggedized, so if a nurse drops the device, it isn't ruined. And so far in our tests of the initial version, the network has stayed up and nurses haven't been dropped," Ague says. The new RFID capabilities are also proving useful. "With the bar code, you had to twist the wristband until bar code was facing you, then you had to aim the scanner, and if the badge wasn't flat, maybe you wouldn't get a good scan," he says. In addition, the SoMa 650 features action buttons on either side, which Ague says makes the device easy to use for both left-handed and right-handed caregivers. At the request of St. Clair Hospital, which wanted a way to prevent handhelds from spreading bacterial infections from patient to patient, Socket Mobile is now developing a disposable, plastic sleeve that can fit over the SoMa 650.
St. Clair Hospital has ordered 120 of the RFID-enabled SoMa 650s, and is now rolling them out throughout the organization's nursing staff. The number of RFID badges and wristbands the hospital will ultimately use has not yet been determined, but Ague says even if all 2,000 of the staff and all the patients each year had tags, the tag costs would "be negligible for a $185 million-a-year business like ours." And the expected benefits are great, he says. For now, the RFID tags provide positive identification of a patient, but the tags could also be used for other types of applications, including lab tests, X-rays and patient tracking.
The SoMa 650 weighs only 6.3 oz. and runs the Windows Mobile 5.0 Professional operating system and includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, an Intel 624 MHz processor, a display with 320- by 240-pixel resolution, and a stylus for input. The SoMa 650 is available now, and starts at $695 per unit.
Submitted Date: Jul 11, 2007
Source: RFID Journal
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