RFID in healthcare: The new way of hospital logistics

As hospitals are busier than ever, it is vital that they operate as efficiently as possible to be able to provide the best level of service and patient care. Hospitals are complex places, with intricate systems of personnel and material flows that need to run smoothly to achieve an efficient patient flow. From patient admission to discharge and everything in between, hospital assets must be locatable, accessible and in working order to ensure patients are treated with the correct equipment, safely and in a timely manner.

If a medical device can’t be located, then it will miss its scheduled maintenance date, meaning the item could be faulty and not safe to use but remain in circulation, causing risk to any patients who are treated using it. It can also impact procurement when the location of various medical devices is unknown, and stocks are short or depleted. A hospital’s procurement team purchases new replacement items to ensure supply to devices to treat patients, this can lead to excess stocks, adding more costs and an increased fleet size to manage.

That’s why RFID healthcare solutions are extremely important – using RFID technology, beds and medical devices can be easily tracked and located when they are required, either for use by a medical professional to treat a patient or for planned preventative maintenance by the clinical engineering department, improving the utilisation of equipment and the hospital’s operational efficiencies.