DHEW has been working with the Royal Glamorgan Hospital to run a pilot testing RFID tracking. Passive tags have been placed on bladder scanners, wheelchairs and rental beds throughout the hospital, along with software to provide staff with real time information on where equipment is. We wanted to understand the real benefits for patients, staff and the hospital of this technology and so commissioned an external evaluation to determine the business case for adoption of this technology.
During the development of this project, we have also been able to include a two-week pilot of patient tracking, to identify the physical journeys patients take around the hospital to help better design services in the future.
- Royal Glamorgan Hospital
- Kinsetsu
- RHCS
Pilot Comes to an End
The project has come to an end, with the team receiving the evaluation report in December 2019. Royal Glamorgan Hospital have decided to invest in the technology as a result of the pilot. Next steps for the team include disseminating learning with other health boards and exploring the potential to expand this project to oxygen canisters.
Pilot Underway
The six-month pilot is underway at Royal Glamorgan Hospital. Initial findings from the pilot and the proposed evaluation process were presented at the DHEW 'Evaluating Evaluation' event in September 2019.
Installation
Installation of readers and tags, integrating the software into the hospital systems, bringing the hospitals ICT team up to speed.
Project scoping completed
Lots of meetings to develop the final project plan - what existing infrastructure would need to be involved or upgraded? Where will the readers go? How will we tag the equipment? How will the tracking software work with the Asset Library?
Technology was ordered in December 2018.
Procurement process
We issued two tender opportunities - one for the technology to track assets, and one for an evaluation of the technology. Kinsetsu were appointed to install the RFID tracking technology, and RHCS were appointed to conduct the evaluation.
Pilot project approved
Following the event, we had approval to run a pilot project to understand the benefits of tracking technology for patients, staff and the hospital. Royal Glamorgan Hospital was chosen as the pilot hospital.
DHEW Asset Tracking Event
We asked the NHS Informatics directors what was their biggest challenge and the answer was 'Resource or Asset tracking'. We held our launch event on March 6th 2018 and brought together NHS and industry to understand the challenge and identify possible solutions.