Jerry Fahrni

Pharmacy Informatics and Technology

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Tag Archives: RFID

RFID technology to monitor football players to prevent overheating on the field

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Jerry Fahrni
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This is simply cool. There’s no other way to put it.

Barcode.com: “On the football field, for example, heat prostration has led to several fatalities over the past few years. The problem starts during pre-season practices that take place under the intense summer sun. Identec has already developed a headband with an embedded heat-sensing chip. The RFID chips embedded in helmets developed by HotHead Technologies, combine RFID with a heat-sensing thermistor, offering plenty of range.”

From the hotheads technology website:

The H.O.T. System is a patent-pending, two-component package that embeds a heat sensing unit inside the helmet of an individual and collects and relays periodic temperature readings from that person’s skin to a portable data collector (A ruggedized PDA or Laptop Computer). The portable device is used to alert the individual or an observer that the person has exceeded an allowable temperature while the subject’s helmet is on.

If skin temperature ranges outside of the set parameters then the data collector will alert the sensor unit in the helmet to take temperature readings at a faster rate. The alert will be displayed on the data collector so the operator of the data collector can make a decision on whether to stop the current activity and seek to receive further observation from a professional and take measures to cool their temperature down. The alert will be automatically removed from the data collector as soon as the skin temperature falls back into the normal parameters.

There’s also a short video that shows the basic idea here.

Categories: Cool Technology | Tags: Cool Stuff, RFID

#HIMSS12 Day 3

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Jerry Fahrni
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Actually Day 3 was yesterday, but I’m just now getting around to putting some thoughts on paper.

Best session I attended was Care Coordination in Practice: Managing Data Volume and Data
Reconciliation
. The presentation was all about big data and how we’re failing to use it appropriately in healthcare. The slide deck was great. It’s available here if you’re interested.

A couple of things I found interesting in the presentation:

  1. There are approximately 1-2 billion clinical documents produced in the United States each year. That’s mind boggling if you stop and think about for a minute.
  2. More than 60% of key clinical data are not found in coded lists.The remainder of the information is found in free text, scanned documents, etc. That’s a problem because a lot of clinical decision support is based on information in coded lists. So what are we missing? A lot.

The takeaway from the presentation: “Get massive amounts of data flowing, then build structure slowly and incrementally. Don’t wait.” The presenter referred to this as “the Google approach to data”. I’m a fan of all things Google so that works for me.

I had coffee with Pauline Sweetman yesterday (@psweetman). Pauline is a pharmacist from the UK that I’ve been tweeting back and forth with for a couple of years. We had a pretty interesting conversation around the differences and similarities between hospital pharmacy practice in the U.S. and UK. Good stuff.

I also had a great conversation with Dr. Heather Leslie (@omowizard), a physician out of Melbourne, Austrialia that’s doing a lot of work with the openEHR project. During our short visit she persuaded me to participate in their Adverse Reaction archetype review; as a pharmacist of course.She’s always looking for additional help if anyone is interested. It’s a worthwhile project so at least have a look.

I spent more time roaming around the exhibitor area, specifically looking at RFID technology. I’m a fan of RFID, but it doesn’t seem to be catching on in healthcare. There are several reasons why, but we should still be looking hard at it’s application. I’m not sure whether RFID will become important or it it’s a bridge technology to something else. But the only way to find out is start using it and see where it goes.

One product that uses RFID technology that I found particularly interesting comes from a company called MEPS Real Time, Inc. Their product features a dispensing cabinet with real-time RFID driven inventory management to go along with a RFID med tray tracking system. Of course you wouldn’t use RFID for everything because it would be labor intensive and expensive, but for high dollar drugs it might make sense. It was pretty impressive.

MEPS_HIMSS12

Categories: Pharmacy Informatics | Tags: HIMSS, Pharmacy Informatics, RFID

RFID-initiated workflow control [article]

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Jerry Fahrni
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RFID-initiated workflow control to facilitate patient safety and utilization efficiency in operation theater1

Abstract
Objective
To control the workflow for surgical patients, we in-cooperate radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to develop a Patient Advancement Monitoring System (PAMS) in operation theater.
Methods
The web-based PAMS is designed to monitor the whole workflow for the handling of surgical patients. The system integrates multiple data entry ports Across the multi-functional surgical teams. Data are entered into the system through RFID, bar code, palm digital assistance (PDA), ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), or traditional keyboard at designated checkpoints. Active radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag can initiate data demonstration on the computer screens upon a patient’s arrival at any particular checkpoint along the advancement pathway.
Results
The PAMS can manage the progress of operations, patient localization, identity verification, and peri-operative care. The workflow monitoring provides caregivers’ instant information sharing to enhance management efficiency.
Conclusion
RFID-initiate surgical workflow control is valuable to meet the safety, quality, efficiency requirements in operation theater.

I like the concept that the article presents, but take a look in the methods section and note the presence of “palm digital assistance (PDA)”. That made me a little suspicious about the age of the article. Even though it was published in December 2011, it was received by the journal December 4, 2009; received in revised form August 16, 2010; accepted August 27, 2010 and finally published more than a year later in December 2011. So it took two years from the time the article was received until it was published. This just fuels my opinion that methods used to disseminate medical and scientific information is completely outdated.

_________________________

  1. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine Vol. 104, Issue 3, Pages 435-442, December 2011
Categories: RFID | Tags: Patient Safety, RFID

Cool Pharmacy Technology–KitCheck

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Jerry Fahrni
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Anyone that’s ever worked in an acute care pharmacy knows about med trays, code trays, transport boxes, intubation kits, etc. They’re a bit of a headache because all the medications inside each kit has to be manually manipulated and tracked, including the dreaded lot number and expiration date of everything in the trays.

Well, KitCheck is a system that uses RFID technology to track the medications found in all those different med trays, code boxes, etc. I thought it was pretty cool. It’s a great idea. Wish I would have thought of it.

Read more …

Categories: Cool Technology | Tags: Cool Stuff, RFID

Metal RFID tags for surgical instruments

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Jerry Fahrni
1 Comment

Barcode.com:

imageThe problem addressed by metal RFID of forgotten surgical tools, sponges and towels is a serious one. The Healthcare Informatics Company found in 2008 that in one out of every eight operations, surgical tools are not properly accounted for. Other statistics indicate such items are left inside a patient’s body in between 1 out of every 1,000 and 1 out of every 5,000 operations. When this happens, they can cause infections and require additional operations, putting a patient’s health at risk and costing a hospital time and money. Until now, hospital operating table personnel had to manually count each small item.

The solution comes from a new generation of small RFID tags. These new metal RFID tags are robust enough to be inserted into surgical instruments, towels and sponges at the time of manufacture and can be read from distances of up to two meters. However, they remain compatible with, and safe for the human body. Xerafy, a Hong Kong company specializing in this technology, has recently introduced a new range of such RFID metal tags. Now RFID for surgical instruments allows them to be tracked automatically, through the operation itself and even throughout sterilization and disposal.

Xerafy offers a couple of whitepapers on the subject worth reading. They can be found here.

Categories: Technology | Tags: RFID

“What’d I miss?” – The week of December 5

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Jerry Fahrni
1 Comment

It’s been a busy week, and pretty much all my attention was focused on the ASHP Midyear event in Anaheim, California. Of course as a pharmacist that’s where my focus should have been, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world stopped moving. Here are some of the things I found interesting this week:
Read more …

Categories: Uncategorized, What'd I miss | Tags: ASHP, ASHP Midyear, box office, mHealth, Mobile Healthcare, Pharmacy, RFID, Tablet PCs

#ASHPMidyear rolls on

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Jerry Fahrni
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Ah yes, another day of ASHP Midyear is in the books and it just keeps getting better with each passing day. Today was probably the busiest day I’ve had since arriving on Saturday, and it went something like this:
Read more …

Categories: Pharmacy Informatics | Tags: ASHP, ASHP Midyear, PPMI, RFID

RFID still a solid alternative to barcoding

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Jerry Fahrni
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There’s an interesting article in the most recent issue of Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare (PSQH) about the use of RFID technology in healthcare and what advantages it may offer over current barcoding technology.

I’ve been interested in the use of RFID technology in healthcare for quite some time. I think there’s real value in the use of RFID secondary to the ability to encode significant amounts of information in the tag. The information contained in an RFID tag could potentially include a patient’s medication regimen, allergies and medical condition. The value become obvious when you consider the possibilities during medication administration in the acute care setting.
Read more …

Categories: Barcoding, RFID | Tags: BCMA, BPOC, Cool Stuff, medica, Patient Safety, RFID

Combination RFID – Bar code reader from Motorola

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Jerry Fahrni
1 Comment

Looks like Motorola is upping the ante a bit in the portable scanner game. They recently introduced a combination bar code scanner and RFID reader for use at the point of care. It’s not pretty, and the name could use a little marketing help, but it offers some interesting functionality. A combination scanning devices like this could be just what the healthcare industry needs as we continue to move forward with BPOC / BCMA and start investigating the expanded role of RFID tags in patient safety.
Read more …

Categories: Barcoding | Tags: Barcode Scanners, BCMA, BPOC, RFID

“What’d I miss?” – Week of December 27th

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Jerry Fahrni
1 Comment

As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.
Read more …

Categories: What'd I miss | Tags: box office, Droid, EHR, EMR, iPhone, Journals, RFID, Social networks, Tablet PCs
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