Cardiac telemetry devices monitor a patient’s heart rate and transmit that information, usually to a nurse’s station. The wearable units are small and portable (about the size of a deck of cards), so patients can leave their beds and walk around or be transported by stretcher while still being monitored by trained patient care staff. However, due to their size, expensive telemetry devices (average price $3,000) are often misplaced or rolled up in bed linens, mistakenly laundered and destroyed, costing hospitals thousands of dollars.

 

Using Sentry AV, Mary Washington can set an alarm to alert staff via e-mail, pager, or a RadarFind user computer screen, and an audible and visible alert if tagged devices such as telemetry units approach a laundry facility, an exit, or any other exclusion zone, preventing damage or theft of the unit. Sentry AV may also be used in conjunction with RadarFind’s temperature tracking applications, triggering an alarm if temperatures in a monitored refrigerator or freezer vary outside a pre-determined range. This application protects temperature-sensitive medications and laboratory samples, and helps hospitals comply with Joint Commission standards.

 

“Sentry AV is another step towards supporting the ‘location and status aware’ hospital,” said Michael Nelson, president of RadarFind. “Our wireless sensor network and deterministic tag technology augment operational processes and improve cost-control and patient care well beyond standard RTLS product offerings. The addition of a sensor alarm will further enhance the system’s ability to help hospitals manage resource demands.”

The new sensor alarm functions also show potential for future applications for patient safety. Patient elopement is a concern for many hospitals and as patient tracking applications grow increasingly sophisticated, Sentry AV can be used to alert hospital staff when patients enter or exit designated areas. RadarFind’s integration with various patient flow solutions from parent company TeleTracking Technologies will further streamline hospital operational efficiency.

Sentry AV works with all current version RadarFind tracking tags, including the industry’s only status tag that features a three-state, color-coded status switch to mark equipment as available (green), in-use (yellow) or needs cleaning/decontamination (red).  Valuable utilization reports are generated by the RadarFind system as a result of using this status tag.

About RadarFind
RadarFind’s Real Time Location System uses an innovative wireless sensor network platform for tracking medical equipment and patients that is highly accurate, yet non-disruptive to hospital operations. RadarFind is the only real-time wireless sensor network developed by former doctors and hospital administrators specifically for the hospital environment. RadarFind Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., a leader in patient flow automation solutions with more than 800 hospital clients in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information, please visit www.teletracking.com and www.radarfind.com.

###