Patient Tracking Devices - For Regular and Emergency Use

In a world where people and situations become more and more complex, it is fortunate that technology and science had kept up in managing them, especially in health care facilities like hospitals, big clinics, and medical centers. One big technological step is the development of patient tracking devices systems in these places.

With the ongoing progress in modern life come new and challenging problems. In big medical complexes where the number of patients is rising, managing their movements and whereabouts has been a huge difficulty if not for the developments of systems that kept them within the facility grounds. 

RFID tags

In the healthcare industry, the development of RFID technology helped healthcare administrators in the tracking of patients that may have wandered and lost their way from their beds and rooms. This is actually an identification system based on RFID, or radio frequency identification.  

Basically, it is an electronic RFID tag embedded in wristbands or special badges with tamper-proof mechanism to prevent users from removing them from their persons, or it can signal an alert if there is an attempt to remove it from the wearer.

RFID readers

RFID readers are strategically placed all over the facility for the patient to be located at once within a measurable distance. This distance is dictated by the system integrator to be small enough for the patient to be found easily and wide enough for proper cost effectiveness.

On average, the read range for active RFID is within ten feet to a thousand feet with enough flexibility in setting up the coverage area. The tags can also be programmed to track the patients outside from their designated places. Alerts can be programmed, too, if these are needed for the facility, the area or the patient.

Added uses

Aside from the original main goal of preventing patients from wandering out of the place without a trace, there are now added uses carried by RFID tracking. For new patients, especially emergency victims (accidents, heart attacks, others that need immediate doctor’s attention, others), the tags are also used to carry written information about their current health.

A burn victim, for instance, might have a tag with his personal condition, plus other items in his health history. For instance, immediate operation might pose great risks to his present hear conditions, say.  (The writing is done inside the ambulance). The monitoring system will then know the conditions and sends the right doctor to the emergency room.

Benefits

These tracking service used on patients (today, hospital staff and personnel are also wearing them) is continuously tracking each patient’s location, and readable by anyone have a use for the system. 

Aside from the main users (patients), RFID tags are now being worn by hospital personnel and others that will also restrict them the access to places where drugs are kept, pediatrics area and other critical areas like high-threat places in times of emergencies.

The patient tracking devices now carry several other tasks that cut down much of the work of hospital personnel, thus beneficial not just in terms of work but also reduce unnecessary costs.