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PCTS Announces Hospital RFID Tracking System
By DAVID SIMS
TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist
Patient Care Technology Systems, a provider of advanced clinical information systems for high-acuity departments, announced today the integration with Parco Wireless' radio frequency identification tracking systems.
PCTS will be integrating the technology, which is designed exclusively for hospital use and uses a highly developed form of RFID called ultra-wideband, with its software for automatically tracking patients and mobile medical equipment.
PCTS automatic tracking software allows for real-time data collection of patient location and care status using most major tracking technology platforms including infrared, active RFID, and now ultra-wideband.
Automated tracking systems operate inertly in the background, passively collecting location data for the caregivers and are designed to eliminate data entry or bar code scanning in some instances. Little demand is placed upon the caregiver to collect this data, giving clinicians time for other things.
The PCTS software uses rules-based intelligence to translate interactions between staff, equipment and patients to identify and time-stamp the progression of care for each patient which can identify patient flow bottlenecks.
PCTS markets automatic tracking products for the emergency department, operating room and hospital under the Amelior brand name.
The ultra-wideband hardware operates across a range of frequency bands while not interfering with existing communication systems since it uses low transmit power, while still maintaining a high data rate. It operates in the time domain rather than the frequency domain, with its signals consisting of high-speed electromagnetic pulses rather than sine waves.
This means that the waves traverse many frequencies unnoticed, which is good for sensitive hospital environments. Considered "hospital-grade wireless," UWB is more robust and accurate than IR, Wi-Fi, or traditional forms of RFID. PCTS officials claim.
As such the combined systems can accurately read tags attached to people and objects in real-time with accuracies between six and 12 inches. The tags are also capable of sending and receiving secure data packets from integrated components to which the tag is attached.
David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.
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