IET adds intelligence to hospital tracking
by Press Dept. - IET

An NHS hospital is transforming the way it tracks the movement of key medical equipment, thanks to access control technology from Innovative Electronic Technology (IET) Ltd.

Derriford Hospital in Plymouth has begun using IET's Integra access control system and Tagweig-1 readers in tandem with Wavetrend active RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags to track medical equipment in and out of its Medical Equipment Library.

Derriford Hospital provides general hospital services to a local population of 430,000 people in Plymouth, West Devon, South Hams and East Cornwall and offers specialist hospital services, including neurosurgery and specialist cancer treatments, to more than 1.6 million people in Devon and Cornwall. The hospital is part of Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, which according to The Sunday Times 'Good Hospital Guide' has the best patient survival rate in south-west England. Being able to secure and quickly locate key medical equipment is crucial to such success.

MEMS (Medical Equipment Management Service), which runs Derriford's Medical Equipment Library, decided that it wanted an electronic asset tracking system to compliment its existing paper file system of logging medical equipment in and out of the library. MEMS also wanted to be able to locate medical equipment after it has left the library.

When MEMS asked local installer Westcountry Security to come up with an affordable, fool-proof system to achieve these objectives, the installer naturally turned to IET for help. IET is Westcountry Security's preferred supplier for access control equipment and the two companies have worked together on security projects for more than seven years.

The key to the installation project was IET's Integra card swipe access control system, which was already in use throughout Derriford Hospital's non-public portal areas. The Integra system is based on Terminus access control software that can be used for asset management. Consequently, it was possible to integrate Wavetrend active RFID asset tags and readers into the hospital's IET Integra system.

Martyn Partridge, technical director at Westcountry Security, says: "Derriford's management asked us to look at asset tagging systems and we said that although we could find one, we would need to install a separate tagging structure. So I suggested that we track assets by using the existing IET Integra system and the access control network already in place."

IET then quickly developed an extremely fast quasi-Wiegand interface card - now known as Tagweig-1 - to connect into a Wavetrend L-RX100 RFID reader that could then be hooked into Integra's data cable infrastructure. A Tagweig-1 and Wavetrend L-RX100 reader were installed in the suspended ceiling void in Derriford's MEMS Library lobby. Together, the Tagweig-1 card and Wavetrend reader log items of medical equipment protected by Wavetrend active RFID tags in and out of the Medical Equipment Library. The movement and location of the tagged medical equipment is recorded and stored on IET's Terminus asset management database.

Martyn outlines how the asset tracking technology enables the hospital to keep tabs on the movement of medical equipment. "Radio receivers within the hospital track medical equipment fitted with a radio tag," he says. "There is a receiver at the main ward entrance and only one entrance into a ward, so MEMS knows that the equipment has gone into that ward." Tagweigs and Wavetrend readers can detect the presence of electronically tagged medical equipment and alert IET's Integra system, which will then show which area the logged items have been moved to.

Once MEMS staff know roughly where the item of medical equipment they are trying to track down has been located, they can then use a Tagfinder-1 tracking scanner with built-in Wavetrend reader (also supplied by IET) to pinpoint the exact location of the equipment.

MEMS' Jonathan Applebee says: "We can look on the static tracking system to see where items of medical equipment have been detected and then go closer to pinpoint exactly where they are located so that we can retrieve them."

Even if someone takes an item of medical equipment outside the reader network range, MEMS staff can go on a walkabout and use Tagfinder to hunt the equipment down. Tagfinder's bleeper goes faster or slower depending on the signal strength; by pointing Tagfinder in different directions you can work out which direction the item of medical equipment is located and up to a point, you can calculate how far away the equipment is - the IET Tagfinder tracking scanner can track items that are up to 200 metres away.

Westcountry Security's Martyn Partridge explains why IET's asset tracking solution has benefited the hospital enormously. "The MEMS department has equipment all over Derriford Hospital and it needs to be able to find out where equipment is located so the department can get it back for servicing, for instance," he says. "Previously, MEMS only had a paper record of medical equipment and it was common for one hospital department to lend equipment out to another department without MEMS knowing that the equipment was no longer with the original renter. MEMS would have had to spend a lot of time hunting that equipment down."

By making it quicker and easier for MEMS to monitor the movement of medical equipment around the hospital, IET's asset tracking solution is expected to save Derriford Hospital money on manpower. "In man hours alone, the system should save the hospital lots of money," says Martyn. "The hospital is moving from a system where someone had to search for equipment that they had no idea how to find - and having to fill in paperwork - to a solution where they can pinpoint the equipment easily through the asset tracking technology."

What is more, the cost of introducing an electronic asset tracking system was lower that Derriford had expected, mainly because the hospital was already using IET's Integra system to control access to around 200 doors.

David Leiper, managing director of IET, says: "Derriford Hospital was able to easily add the tagging system onto our standard access control system. Anybody already using one of our access control systems could easily add asset management capability."

IET's access control and asset tracking technology has been integrated with the hospital's CCTV system, too. CCTV cameras inside the Medical Equipment Library capture images of staff taking equipment from the room; when a staff member swipes their ID card, the CCTV system starts recording images from the library so that the hospital has visual evidence of who has taken medical equipment out of the room.

The system's potential for tracking does not stop with equipment, though, emphasises David. He is confident that IET's tracking solution will soon be used to track people as well as property. "One of the other uses we see for the asset tracking system is to combine it with long-range access cards and provide direction sensing options, so that we can tell which way people are walking through an area," he says. "It could prove a good low-cost alternative at sites where it is difficult to put in normal long-range proximity systems."

Derriford Hospital is still trialling its new asset tracking system, which has so far been deployed in two areas of Derriford: the Medical Equipment Library and one of the hospital's wards. Derriford believes that the system has great potential, and hopes to eventually expand the system so it can track all of the hospital's key medical equipment electronically.

The success of the Derriford trial underlines the benefits that a long partnership between a client, installer and manufacturer can bring. Derriford Hospital was the original research and development site for IET's Integra access control panel. With the help of IET and Westcountry Security, the hospital's access control system has evolved to incorporate new technology over the last few years.

Other hospitals are likely to follow in Derriford's footsteps. A number of NHS trusts have already expressed an interest in adopting IET's asset tracking technology. The electronic approach to asset tracking, it seems, is here to stay.

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