Health First Improves Asset Utilization And Reduces Costs At Its Three Hospitals Using Aeroscout Hea

AeroScout, the leading provider of Unified Asset Visibility for the healthcare industry

, today announced that Health First has implemented and is realizing significant benefits from AeroScouts Wi-Fi RFID Asset Tracking and Temperature Monitoring solutions in its three hospitals, and will soon deploy the solutions at a fourth that are currently under construction. Health First uses AeroScouts Healthcare Real Time Location System (RTLS), integrated with a high performance Cisco Unified Wireless Network designed and implemented by AT&T, to increase equipment utilization, improve patient care and reduce capital expenditures. For instance, Health First has gained visibility and deep insights into the utilization patterns of its infusion pumps, which will enable the health system to equip its soon-to-open Viera Hospital without having to purchase new infusion pumps a potential savings of more than $300,000.

A not-for-profit, community-based health system serving Floridas Brevard County, Health First is devoted to integrating quality healthcare services with state-of-the-art technology. It presently consists of three hospitals Cape Canaveral Hospital, Holmes Regional Medical Center and Palm Bay Hospital and is building Viera Hospital, which is scheduled to open its doors in 2011.

With AeroScouts Asset Tracking and Management solution, Health First is more effectively using its 1,200 infusion pumps and tracking other important medical equipment, such as bariatric beds. AeroScouts WiFi Tags with integrated telemetry interfaces enable visibility into the status of infusion pumps (e.g., active, inactive, etc.) in addition to tracking the pumps location.

Knowing the status of pumps adds significant value to an asset tracking and management solution, said Walter Lawrence, Director of Clinical Engineering. This additional visibility means we dont have to physically find the pump to know if it is in use or not, and we also gain accurate utilization data that we never before had.

The resulting enhanced hospital asset tracking and utilization has three important benefits:

The staff spends significantly less time searching for assets, which, prior to deploying the solution, could take thirty minutes or more for a single item;

Health First can avoid the purchase of additional pumps, which on average costs thousands of dollars each; and

The hospitals dont have to rent extra pumps nearly as often, thus reducing the associated rental costs.

In addition to the substantial time savings weve gained as a result of being able to locate equipment more quickly, the AeroScout solutions are extremely valuable in exposing what we didnt know before, such as utilization rates of infusion pumps and finding faulty refrigerators. They also give us a wealth of data that we can use to more effectively manage our equipment, said Rich Rogers, CIO, Health First. We estimate that we will avoid having to purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of IV pumps alone, in addition to the other cost savings and benefits that the AeroScout solutions have delivered.

With AeroScouts WiFi Temperature Monitoring solution, Health First wirelessly tracks the temperature of refrigerators that store medications located throughout its three hospitals. The solution automatically records the temperature of each refrigerator at 15-minute intervals, alleviating the nursing and pharmacy staff of the task of manually tracking readings. For example, in two instances, the AeroScout solution saved Health First an estimated $60,000 that it would have cost in each occurrence to replace spoiled medications by quickly identifying a refrigerator that accidentally had been unplugged. The system alerted staff when the temperature exceeded a pre-set range and provided the accurate historical temperature data required to determine if the medications stored in that refrigerator had to be disposed of or could be saved.

by: Amit Larom

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