Hospital goes wireless to track patients

Wi-Fi as an alternative to RFID for tracking

Birmingham’s Heartlands hospital is using wireless networking in its ear, nose and throat department to improve efficiency and patient care.

Under the scheme, patients are photographed and tagged with WiFi-enabled chips when they enter the hospital so their location can be tracked at a later stage.
Using simple triangulation calculations, the system can determine the location of a sensor to within a one- to 10-metre radius.

When the patient arrives in an area, their details automatically appear on monitoring screens and PDAs in theatres, anaesthetic rooms, nurses’ stations and waiting areas.

Surgeons can also use wireless handheld devices to alter the order of operations by knowing in advance which patients have been prepared for surgery and how far away they are from the theatre at any point in time.

Keith Jones, chief executive of Daconi, the technology firm behind the implementation, says this approach has helped to cut costs by removing the need to install expensive radio frequency identification scanners.

Instead, the hospital has been fitted with wireless access points to ensure ubiquitous coverage.

‘Wireless helps close the last gap by bringing patients’ medical records to the bedside,’ he said.