EBME Forums Forums Management Lost and Found Missing T34

Hi,
T34's are always going AWOL form us - Mainly because we cover 5 London Boroughs with our Homecare service and the patients families don't realise how expensive bits of kit are and they get thrown away before we can retrieve them.
I have a long list of serial numbers MIA since 2010.
S23357-S23424-S40612-S40699-S40711-S40713-S40718-S40722
S40724-S41524-S41526-S41534-S41539-S41541-S41546-S41547
S41572-S41574-S41704-S41705-S41712-S41713-S41715-S41716
S41721-S41730-S61740
If you find any please let me know.
Thank you

I doubt that you'll be seeing any of those again; I imagine they will all be long gone.

Anyway, let me put that right for you:-

"... the patients families don't realise care how expensive bits of kit are and they get thrown away before we can retrieve them".

And, "thrown away"? - or "sold"?

Or, put another way, maybe they have realised how valuable they are.

Either way, the solution is:- bill them!

you never know I had one turn up after 2 years MIA!
We've had them dumped with chemists along with the unused drugs, They've been passed to one of our shops months and months later.
I'd love to bill the patients but we're a charity and the powers that be are uncomfortable with that suggestion at the moment...

OK ... so they generally do get returned, then.

How many (as a percentage) never get seen again?

Are you able to tell us which charity? And how it gets funded?

I work for a well known Hospice...
We've had 3 turn up after over a year of being missing but we average about 10 a year being lost for good!
It costs £19 million a year to deliver our services. We must raise nearly £13 million each year.

What about the other £ 6 million?

Again, if manufacturers could be convinced that missing kit was a "real" problem (as in, one that created "extra value" - features - that they could charge a premium to solve), I'm sure that "technology" would pretty soon kick up the answer!

Off the top of my head, I think I would go for (what would effectively be) a cell-phone embedded inside the pump casing; just another small board. The person trying to locate the device sends out a "ping" (SMS, maybe), and the device silently responds. I believe the location of the reply can be traced in the same way that "texting drivers" can be nabbed. You know, a kind of "E.T. phone home" sort of thing!

CCGs fund some nursing care I believe.
I have been looking at GPS trackers - they are getting smaller!

Yes; GPS, or RFID.

But I doubt that either will be much good when the items are indoors (as they usually will be) ... or in someone's suitcase (or whatever).

GPS needs to "see" the satellites. Yes, trackers are cheap, but are really aimed at trucks and vans etc.

And RFID needs to be within range of the antennae. It may work OK within a (wired) group of hospital buildings; but not much use when kit is "out in the wild", as it were.

Geoff, the RFID should alert the security that someone is trying to take the equipment out of the building, if authorized security will know the destination and 'owner' of the equipment

Yes, Neil ... but not much help once the kit has been "loaned" into the "Community".

And "security" ... what's that?