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Pittsburgh Hospital Pilots Hybrid Pocket PC & RFID System |
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At St. Clair
Hospital, in Pittsburgh, the medical staff in one of the hospital's
surgical units is using dual bar code and RFID readers to track
medication administered to patients. Plugged into palm-size Pocket PCs
linked to the hospital's computer network via a Wi-Fi connection, the
devices save the staff time and help prevent errors.
The system is available on a Pocket PC using Windows Mobile software,
rather than a larger laptop or desktop computer. Therefore, the process
of using both bar code and RFID scanning is more accessible to nursing
staff. Until St. Clair began using the Series 6 solution, nurses worked
with laptop computers on carts that allowed bar code scanning in
patients' rooms. The carts, however, were so unwieldy that the system
was rarely used, according to Rich Schaeffer, VP of technology at St.
Clair.
"The fact that you can take that device [CF RFID Reader-Scan Card]
and plug it into a Pocket PC is a huge adoption [incentive] for
nurses," Schaeffer says.
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Source: RFID Journal
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