A comment on How RFID Technology Improves Hospital Care

By Daniel Cabrera • January 20, 2016

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In December, Drs. Hellmich and Pasupathy published an article in The Harvard Business Review describing How RFID Technology Improves Hospital Care. The article outlines the Mayo Clinic ED-Clinical Engineering Learning Labs multidisciplinary efforts to install an RFID (radio-frequency ID) real time location system to improve operational efficiency and patient care in St. Marys Emergency Department.

The impact on clinical care of the new RFID technology include:

  • Decrease search time for staff, patients, and key equipment
  • Improved data capture of CMS reported metrics, e.g. time to provider, length of stay
  • Expedient contact tracing of staff who were exposed to infectious diseases like TB, Pertussis
  • Retrospective event mapping of adverse events to improved patient care
  • Identification of system constraints in flow of patients and equipment.

Here the Harvard Business Review Article:

https://hbr.org/2015/12/how-rfid-technology-improves-hospital-care