My name is Tonquita Davis. I am majoring in health service administration. In my proposal, I work for Grace Ministries Hospital and I am the product champion, reporting to the executive champion.

Today I will talk about Bar coding replacement: Radio frequency identification (RFID) Before I begin with why we need RFID in the surgical department of our hospital, I would like to give you a brief background onWhat is RFID

What is RFID: RFID is an automatic identification and data capturing technused to track and identify people or objets.It has three main componentsRFID tags which can be embedded, or attach to things to be identified and track using serial numbers or product codesRFID readers decodes the data inside of RFID tags RFID middle takes data from readers, filter it and pass the data to computer database.

The main concern for our (my) hospital are reducing (rising health care) cost and increasing patient safety to enhance the quality of care in our surgical department. And two potential benefits of RFID are cost reduction and patient safety. (And that what we want to do). How can RFID achieve these two out come by preventing three types of problem (RFID can help prevent) that contribute to rising healthcare cost and safety gaps that can occur in our surgical unit.

Retain Objects left inside of patients after surgery.

Misidentification: Wrong person, wrong produce wrong site.According to JCHA reports five to eight wrong procedure occur per month

Misplace or lost critical Assets (inventory) Needed for surgical procedures that could save lives.

Although bar code reduces some risk for medical error, RFID is a more effective process because of its’ advantages.

RFID advantages over bar code Doesn’t require a line of sight: Have unique identification at the product level. Can read at longer distance ranges Can read multiple tags at once. Have larger memory capabilities and Yield faster processing.

I propose that to enhance the quality of patient carewe implement RFID to be used for application of identifying patients, Tracking surgical equipment and inventory in our surgical units.

Tracking surgical equipment: especially, sponges will help eliminate retain foreign. The idea here is to embed RFID tags in our surgical equipment, and use RFID readers to scan over surgical patients to make sure our doctors didn't accidentally leave objects inside of patients. It can also eliminate the manual counting process, which is time consuming, and subject to human error.

Patient identification: will help prevent the likelihood of wrong-person, procedure and cite. Using RFID to identify patient will help ensure information is correct and increase patient safety. RFID tags will be embedded into patients’ wristband (The tags can store lots of critical and needed information) and staff will read the information with RFID readers to confirm the right patient, procedures and operative site.

Tracking critical inventory: will ensure that need assets are ready for surgical procedures Managing inventories with RFID System will lead to improved asset use and lower rental costs because of the ability to pinpoint the misplaced items, which can saves lots of money spent for replacing the items. It will also reduce the time employees spend looking for needed inventory and allow them to provide better care to patients.

When RFID systems are adopted for these applications, we can receive these potential benefits’Benefits of using RFID Cost reduction Increased patient safety Shorten patients wait times Improved inventory efficiency Fewer medical errors Reduced burdens on caregivers

Concern with RFID Privacy: Patients fear that RFID tags would allow others, especially third parties to get access to their health information.So our hospital need to make sure that we comply with the Human Services Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires an organization to take measures to safeguard health data.

Cost: Cost of an RFID system requires cost depends on the types of application, systems and size of installation so it hard to give an exact figure, but each main component will have up front cost. Tags price can be anywhere from 20 cent to 100 dollar a piece, depending on types of tags used. Reader are price from 500 to 3,000 dollars depending on their functionality Middle ware can be purchase for 5,000 up to 20,000 depending on numbers of locations and

applications According to Page, quotes from various vendors indicate that it costs $200,000 to $600,000 or more to install a facility wide RFID tracking system in a medium-sized hospital, but vendors are quick to say that the new efficiencies RFID systems produce can pay for the investment in one to two years

Upon my research, I found many applications RFID could be adopted for, but my recommendation for this hospital is that we adopt RFID technology for application of patient identification, tracking surgical tools and inventory in the surgical department of our hospital. This will allow us to enhance the quality of care and keep our competitive advantage.This concludes my presentation. Do you have any question at this time?