VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV: A process problem RFID fixes

via cnn.com

I can tell you from deep reviews of the VA and civilian hospitals that i many cases, the VA has better processes. They are just in the news a lot more because (a) they are under a microscope using Federal money; (b) they treat our most important population: our veterans; and (c) they are one f the largest healthcare systems in the US. Our Veterans deserve only the best case and usually they get it at the VA.

But, again, being under the microscope, they get in the news fairly often. In this case, a VA hospital is in hot water for not properly cleaning some of their dental equipment. They have had to send notices to 1,800 vets that they may have acquired HIV, Hep B or C. If this sounds familiar, its because it is. Last year, the VA was cited for similar issues in colonoscopies.

In fact, Mobile Aspects pioneered a solution for cleaning processes with RFID 2 years ago (iRIScope). One customer, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is using the system to track the cleaning, use and storage of over 200 scopes in 6 locations. With RFID, all the data is gathered automatically, and proactive alerts are sent out in "bad" situations. Further, our RFID scope tracking system literally has lights that glows red, and locks down the cabinets, if a potentially dirty scope is placed back into storage.

The dental issue at this VA is similar. The VA deserves recognition for having a dental tool cleaning protocol (most hospitals wouldn't). However, someone broke protocol. Subsequently, they had to send a notice to 1,800 veterans because their manual records are hard to decipher. This is where RFID comes into play - without the user logging anything, we see that someone didnt do a step properly and we immediately log it and send out an alert. If there is a downstream issue, instead of sending a notice to 1,800 veterans, the hospital only needs to send out a notice to the 100 veterans that the improperly cleaned tool was used on.

Properly implemented in an extremely simple to use manner, RFID logs every step and creates alerts right at the point of potential error. Additionally, if an error does still occur, there is good, actionable data at the users fingertips. This is the power of RFID to heal hospitals.

Posted via email from Suneil Mandava's Posterous