Mobile Aspects Technology Installed at DMC Harper University
DMC Harper University Hospital in Michigan plans to install an RFID materials management system (pdf) from Mobile Aspects for products in the facility’s Cardiac Catheterization Labs. The news was described in a press release from Mobile Aspects.
The Mobile product, iRISupply, is a supply cabinet used to store expensive equipment and devices. It is one component of the organization’s Aspects One System of CARE solution, which provides automation of activities for resource management.
Cabinet are equipped with an architecture that uses RFID tracking to support inventory management, management of device expiration, automated charge capture, and other key activities required for materials management in the patient care environment. The tool promotes completion of all these activities in real-time and eliminates the need for manual approaches to materials management.
DMC Harper, affiliated with the Detroit Medical Center, is testing the product for supply chain management. The organization will assess the product’s ROI by investigating improvements in inventory management, billing processes and tracking equipment utilization with automated features.
iRISupply can be used with different approaches for access of materials within the cabinet, such as RFID-enabled identification badges or those with embedded magnetic stripes. Materials are linked to the patient for which they are to be used with one touch to access a list of patients.The cabinets are available in a variety of configurations to support storage of a variety of different types of devices, tools, and equipment. Additionally, the system can be expanded across time, if facilities chose to broaden the line of products supported with this utility. This feature allows organizations to invest a minimum to evaluate ROI before committing additional resources to purchase a larger system.
Facilities across the U.S. and abroad are reporting adoption of RFID tools to support materials management. Brigham and Women’s Hospital evaluated the utility of a system that uses RFID to track equipment. A facility in the Czech Republic is investigating benefits of tracking chemotherapeutic agents with RFID tools. Seton Medical Center, alternatively, acquired a tracking system that uses ultrasound.
In addition to these projects at various facilities, multiple organizations such as McKesson, Xmark, and Agility are unveiling systems for materials management that use either RFID or other approaches.
August 28, 2007 Related topics: Wireless, Contract Awards, IT & software, Materials Management