Hello,

I work for Barwick Systems Ltd (the company behind the E-MAT Medical Equipment Management application) and I believe that an asset tagging and tracking supplier was doing the EBME/Medical Physics rounds prior to Christmas 2004. I am hoping that someone would be kind enough to forward me their details (I filed my mail shot in an inappropriate place :boggle: ).

Out of interest would departments be interested in utilising this technology?
The enhanced data quality should improve the efficiency of PPM/PAT management, reducing wasted technician time searching for equipment that has been transferred to a different department.
I'm sure that there would be CNST implications. Due to assets being tracked and PPM’s being completed in a timely manner, if there were to be a clinical incident then the asset in question should have had its relevant PPM/PAT.

Many thanks in advance for the requested information or any comments.

Martin

Martin
In April 2003 there was a conference on Smart Tagging in Healthcare. The use of this technology can only be good for the maintenance of equipment though the costs can be prohibitive. One of the talks was a joint venture between Telegesis (UK) ltd and Acumen Business Solutions. I also recall a paper published from a hospital (Frimley I think) who had installed such a system. I believe tracking devices would be useful but as mentioned cost would be an issue as would possible interference and reliability and accuracy of the system.

Martin

We had a presentation earlier this year by a company called Mantic Point. It looked good but is expensive.
Their site is http://www.manticpoint.com

Max and Dave,

Many thanks for taking the time to respond and I shall follow up on your leads.

I had hoped that there maybe a market leader that we could have potentially got into bed with (so to speak) to integrate with E-MAT.

Perhaps NPfIT may become involved at some point in the future to assist with finance and roll out if tagging/tracking is identified as a core requirement.

Once again thanks for your time.

Martin

Martin

Remember GE Med Systems were "dabbling" into something on these lines a couple of years back.

Don't know if they still are, a guy called Ian Mc Laren did a presentation for a group of EBME managers in the NW.

Dave,

Thanks for the lead.
I've also been provided with details for a company called Mantic Point.

Thanks again
Martin

Martin / Dave

The GE system is called Intellimotion

Mantic point did a presentation this week at the northern benchmarking group. Whilst i was impressed at what was being described I have to say its not cheap.
And the system that seems to be the one that is most useful takes quite a bit of installation. And battery changing.

As we talking about the device to do this or a system to run it?

I can not see the reason why smart tagging should be expensive, as all they are is chip (EEPROM) which is powered from the reader, that being connected (pressed on) or induced.
I am quite sure that the circuit to do this is very easy, and as i remember, in the data sheets for some of these devices.
I designed a tracking system for beer kegs ten years ago which used a psion organiser and plug in tag reader.
May be i'm barking up the wrong tree, as you mentioned battery changing.
Basically it used the tag that people behind bars currently use to identify who is serving you. Strong, small, various memory sizes, no battery.
Scott

Hi,

I'm from Mantic Point, one of the companies mentioned above.

I want to respond to some of the points about the hardware required to enable asset tracking.

The key requirement is that a tagged asset needs to be read from distance of around 2.5m - 3m, so equipment movements between departments can be automatically detected with no disruption to working practices.

Today, the 2 main options are:

1) Active (battery powered) tags. These have a relatively high cost per tag (because the tag is more sophistiaced), but readers (receivers) are simpler, so less expensive.

2) UHF Passive (battery less) tags (the same technology being used by Tesco). Here you have a lower cost tag, but the readers are more sophisticated, so are more expensive.

The best technology for a deployment depends on the number of assets to be tagged, the number of areas (e.g. wards / departments) to be monitored, the number of potential future applications using the reader infrastructure (e.g. monitoring wandering patients).

In terms of justifying any investment, I think the key is to show benefits beyond those for medical engineering. Martin Henley makes some good points about CNST. Other risk management benefits include having an audit trail for the movements of each piece of equipment if an infection broke out. And, on the clinical side, assset tracking can prevent operations or appoints being cancelled because of missing equipment (e.g. no ultrasound machine leads to cancelled outpatients clinic).

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,
Bryan