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CLINICAL SAMPLES

Manage and Track the Transportation of Clinical Samples to the Laboratory

See how ASD’s RFIDMedical solution helps in the tracking of clinical samples at St. James’s hospital in Dublin

An ever present concern for hospitals is the transportation of clinical samples from the operating theatre to the laboratory for analysis. After each procedure, the hospital has a responsibility to ensure that data for the clinical sample is accurately recorded and that the clinical sample is taken from the theatre to the lab in a timely manner. Furthermore, it is important to know the chain of custody for the clinical sample at any given time.

clinical_samples

RFIDMedical is a complete solution for hospitals and healthcare facilities that tracks and monitors the movement of clinical samples that are RFID-tagged within a fixed-reader environment or with the use of RFID handheld scanners.

Information for all tracked items is stored centrally on an RFIDMedical server ensuring that all data, for all RFID-tagged items, can be shared both internally and externally with the relevant personnel.

It is important to note that no personal or medical information is stored by ASD - only tracking information about the RFID tags and labels.


The following issues have been identified:

Manual paper-based process.
Poor chain of custody.
Unreliable or missing data.

By having an unreliable procedure for monitoring and transporting clinical samples they may go missing, patients are unable to be diagnosed, patient security/safety is at risk and the hospital could be subjected to litigation.


The solution

rfid_tagging

Once clinical samples are RFID-tagged and known to the RFIDMedical system, they are automatically monitored as they move within the fixed reader environment without the need for data to be manually entered into a system.

Transactions that users forgot to enter into the system become a thing of the past.  If unexpected or unauthorised movements occur, the system will issue alerts within a defined timeframe to the appropriate personnel via e-mail or text message to highlight the movement.

An RFID label is attached to the container of the clinical sample as it is removed from the operating theatre and linked to the patient via the laboratory test order. By doing this we know the details of the patient that is undergoing the procedure. We are also able to determine the staff member, a surgeon for example, that is operating on the patient as well as any other staff in attendance.

Hospital porters and orderlies are issued with UHF RFID enabled ID badges and can be easily associated with the samples that they are transporting through the hospital premises. Again, the data is automatically and transparently recorded with no line-of-sight requirement. RFIDMedical allows an association between the porter and the samples to be made in one of two ways:


  • Through a touchscreen-driven pickup process.
  • An automatic association whereby an algorithm matches the movements of both the porter and the samples through the same physical points.

At the laboratory the staff take ownership of the sample, again using their RFID enabled ID badge if required. In this way, a chain of custody and a real-time tracking of the samples through the facility can be built up. The benefits of this are as follows:


The benefits of this are as follows:

Automatic data collection.
Knowledge of the location of the clinical sample.
Improved efficiency.
Chain of custody is established.

RFIDMedical provides hospitals with traceability and visibility of clinical samples and all RFID-tagged items.  Using industry standards, RFIDMedical provides data that can be shared internally within the hospital, data that can be interfaced to other hospital systems and data that can be shared externally with selected suppliers and business partners.  Standing on the foundation of such industry standards allows hospitals to avoid customization of any kind with suppliers.  The benefits of this solution will be far reaching and in all areas of the hospital industry going forward.



All RFIDMedical solutions are GS1 / EPC accredited and comply with the GS1 EPC Tag Data Standard.

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