Cath Lab Digest - September 2007 - (Page 42)

42 INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SEPTEMBER 2007 Doing the Wave: Inventory Management with RFID Kathryn Green, Senior Director Radiology Services and Cardiovascular Diagnostic & Interventional Services UMass Memorial Medical Center, Worcester, Massachusetts real-time tracking of supplies in the specialty labs. In particular, the cardiac catheterization lab wanted to see if a system existed that would address their inventory management needs, fit into their already strapped budget, and lastly, preserve the current work flow of nurses and technologists. The Solution UMass Memorial Medical Center chose WaveMark Inc.’s RFID-based inventory management solution for tracking critical medical supplies. To better ensure availability and control costs of physician preference items, the initial installation of WaveMark CIMS was in the 5 cardiac cath labs, as well as the department’s storeroom. Soon thereafter, WaveMark CIMS was also deployed in the 2 electrophysiology rooms and the 2-room interventional radiology lab. A total of over 3,000 items with values up to $30,000 each are now being continuously monitored by WaveMark CIMS. UMass Memorial Hospital. I nventory management is a growing concern as supply expenses continue to balloon with the rapid introduction of new medical technologies. With some specialty labs carrying well over a million dollars in high-value medical supplies, keeping costs under control while ensuring the right products are available at the right time is a critical responsibility of every procedure area manager. UMass Memorial Medical Center, located in Worcester, MA, has one of the largest cardiac cath labs in New England, performing over 2,500 interventional procedures a year while carrying an inventory valuation of $2M on any given day. Despite the lab’s reputation for being extremely diligent in managing the growing inventory for their busy 7-room cardiac cath lab, the old approach was a manual process which was time-consuming and errorprone. The cardiovascular leadership team was determined to find an automated solution to managing the flow of high-cost cardiac supplies such as stents and balloons. As an early adopter of RFID technology, UMass was interested in discovering whether RFID could provide How It Works WaveMark CIMS is a web-based solution providing real-time visibility of inventory. To collect and make this information available, WaveMark installs RFID-enabled cabinets in the hospital to store and track products. Each product box is tagged with a passive 13.56 MHz RFID tag that serves as a “license plate” to that individual product. The intelligent cabinets have built-in RFID antennas that read tagged items on the shelves every 18 minutes and feed the data to the WaveMark database. When products are used in a procedure, they are waved in front of Point-of-Service (POS) readers that confirm usage and simultaneously feed into the cardiac cath lab’s hemodynamic system. This means staff no longer needs to barcode or use pull-down menus to capture usage of these items. The data is Kathryn Green, Senior Director Radiology Services and Cardiovascular Diagnostic & Interventional Services, reviews a WaveMark CIMS report. Reporting tools suggest changes in target inventory levels based on usage history.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cath Lab Digest - September 2007

St. Dominic Hospital The Genous Bio-engineered R Stent Percutaneous Treatment of Peripheral Arterial Chronic Total Occlusions: Device Options and Clinical Outcomes Contents Clinical Editor’s Corner Percutaneous Revascularization of Peripheral Chronic Total Occlusion — Which Patients, Why, and How? Myocardial Infarction and Syncope: A Manifestation of the “Raynaud-Prinzmetal Syndrome”? Essential Technical Components of the Transradial Approach If You Build It, Will They Come? Evidence-Based Medicine with Drug-Eluting Stents Back to School: The Value of Education in Cardiovascular Services The ACVP Standards and Competencies: Are You Using Them Effectively? What Do You Think? My Experience with Fibromuscular Dysplasia and Stroke A Brief Review of Fibromuscular Dysplasia Letter to the Editor A Look at On-the-Job Training: Perceptions, Reality and Our Profession Doing the Wave: Inventory Management with RFID The Ten-Minute Interview with… Paul Pinsker, RCIS CLD’s Annual Salary Survey Harrisburg Area Community College Volunteer Survey CEU Education Center SICP* Section Ask the Clinical Instructor: A Q&A Column for Those New to the Cath Lab Clinical & Industry News

Cath Lab Digest - September 2007

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