Resource:

SUNY Upstate Medical University

Case Study

Challenge: Care Continuum  Financial Sustainability  

Content provided by AHA Endorsement partner: STANLEY Healthcare

SUNY Upstate Increases Efficiency and Reduces Costs with Stanley Healthcare’s AeroScout Solutions, Making Every Second and Dollar Count for Patient Care.


Overview

The Need
State University of New York Upstate Medical University faces the same challenges as many other hospital organizations—increased pressure to improve efficiency and preserve capital.

The Solution
SUNY Upstate now derives additional value from its wireless network by using the Wi-Fi-based AeroScout Asset Management solution. SUNY Upstate tracks, manages and optimizes items ranging from IV pumps to O.R. equipment to wheelchairs to procedure carts. The hospital also uses the AeroScout Temperature Monitoring solution to automatically track and record temperatures in pharmacy and nursing unit refrigerators and freezers. In addition, SUNY Upstate is monitoring pediatric patients with the Stanley Healthcare Patient Safety solution.

The Results
Patient and asset tracking and temperature monitoring are providing strong benefits for SUNY Upstate today, including the following:

  • Clinical engineers focused on equipment maintenance, and clinical staff focused on patient care
  • Facility expansion with no staff expansion in Clinical Engineering.
  • Reduction in capital purchases.
  • Reduced pharmaceutical and food spoilage.
  • Better throughput and improved patient safety in the O.R.
  • Increased staff satisfaction.


 

Challenges Faced

One area of particular concern is managing and tracking medical equipment and assets, which range from IV pumps to O.R. equipment to wheelchairs. SUNY Upstate, like most hospitals, also tended to over-purchase equipment due to inefficient utilization and employees hoarding items for future use.

SUNY Upstate has operating rooms on two different floors at its facility. With a total of 17 operating rooms, much of the equipment is shared between those rooms and floors. The equipment can be stored in many different locations— sometimes even off-site—or might be in use when it’s needed in another O.R. Finding and tracking equipment was a significant challenge and required many people to locate items across multiple locations. This meant that surgery start times were sometimes delayed while equipment was tracked down. In other words, O.R. throughput could be affected.

SUNY Upstate is a Level 1 Trauma Center, which means cases tend to be complex and are often emergencies, making asset management and tracking even more important. Trauma patients’ lives depend on immediate availability of equipment.

Another challenge was monitoring temperatures in the refrigerators that stored pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and laboratory samples. The old manual recording system was prone to human error, and losses of materials can quickly escalate into tens of thousands of dollars if one refrigerator fails. Also, monitoring of refrigerator temperatures is regulated by The Joint Commission, so having adequate and accessible documentation is an essential requirement.

In 2009, SUNY Upstate opened its Golisano Children’s Hospital, incorporating state of the art design and layout. The hospital was designed with kids in mind, from the bright and friendly crayon colors to fiber optic art on the walls. The building design encourages exploration and playing, incorporating a tree house theme. As a result, SUNY Upstate staff was concerned about being able to easily locate their pediatric patients and how they could be alerted if a child left the unit.

Solution Benefits
SUNY Upstate had completed the installation of a new Cisco Unified Wireless Network. Once the network was implemented, the SUNY Upstate management team saw an opportunity to leverage this infrastructure to better utilize its mobile medical equipment, including beds, wheelchairs, rental equipment and approximately 600 IV pumps, all of which constantly move throughout the facility.

“We are always thinking about how we can best leverage technology to improve our operations and medical care,” said Terry Wagner, Chief Information Officer, SUNY Upstate. “In a nutshell, we needed to find equipment faster and optimize its use, and we found a valuable asset tracking solution with AeroScout that didn’t require installation of special RFID readers nor a proprietary network. We were able to use the same network and access points—which we had already installed for data and voice—to enable the location, tracking and management of medical equipment.”

SUNY Upstate chose Stanley Healthcare’s Wi-Fi-based Asset Management, Patient Safety and Environmental Monitoring solutions. SUNY Upstate purchased AeroScout Wi-Fi Tags and MobileView software and started tracking O.R. equipment and procedure carts to help them find critical items faster and to improve throughput and patient care and safety.

The original goal was to optimize management of IV pumps. “We wanted to improve IV pump utilization because we suspected it was too low and that with better information, we could improve utilization and decrease further capital purchases,” said Wagner. “However, during the implementation it became clear that the challenge we should tackle was the management of our O.R. equipment. On top of the tricky situation with two floors of O.R.s dedicated to children and adults, we were about to lose one of our onsite storage rooms, so the complexity of optimizing our O.R. equipment was going to increase.” The solution is now used in the Perioperative Department to locate equipment required for surgery using MobileView’s graphical user interface to quickly retrieve it for use.

The AeroScout solution was implemented by Stanley Healthcare’s Professional Services, working closely with SUNY Upstate’s IT, biomedical and clinical teams to configure the solutions for ease of use, taking into consideration the way SUNY Upstate staff worked and using their nomenclature for equipment. Photographs and common names for all equipment were loaded into MobileView. As a result, the deployment required minimal staff training. Wi-Fi Tags were attached to hospital equipment, often done during the routine inspection, maintenance and repair process. SUNY Upstate has AeroScout tags attached to over 2,000 assets.

The AeroScout Temperature Monitoring solution monitors approximately 100 refrigerators that store pharmaceuticals, vaccines and laboratory samples. The AeroScout solution was also deployed to more than 70 food and nutrition refrigerators. AeroScout Wi-Fi Tags installed in the refrigerators transmit temperature data at pre-set time intervals. This information, as well as the date and time, is transmitted along with the unique ID number of the tag within the refrigeration unit. The MobileView software associates the temperature data with a specific refrigerator.

The solution automatically records data regarding refrigerator temperatures, as well as generates alerts if the temperature reaches an unacceptable level, which could put any temperature-sensitive contents at risk.

Following these successes and in conjunction with the opening of the new children’s hospital, SUNY Upstate chose AeroScout to help track its pediatric patients. Patients who are at risk of leaving their assigned area without permission now wear AeroScout Wi-Fi Tags on wristbands. AeroScout Exciters are mounted at strategic locations around the department. If a patient leaves the assigned area an alert is immediately sent from MobileView to a nurse’s wireless communications badge. This allows staff members to rapidly locate the patient.

Lessons Learned

  • SUNY Upstate recommends configuring MobileView in the way you want assets organized by categories and departments. For example, it can be set up so end users who work with O.R. equipment only see the items needed for their area.
  • SUNY Upstate also imported photos of equipment. This keeps the system simple for the end user and can make it easy to locate and recognize a piece of equipment that might be seldom used. “As you are looking for a particular item, you go to a floor and simply drag your mouse over that item on the floor layout,” said Zeman. “Most people know the equipment by what it looks like rather than by name, so that ended up being an incredibly useful tool.”
  • Simplify and enhance floor plans with colored zones and landmarks that are familiar to staff members.
  • Some equipment may pose additional challenges, such as IV pumps, because of the number of types, sizes and shapes, so SUNY Upstate encourages other healthcare facilities to work closely with Stanley Healthcare’s experienced Professional Services team to develop a solution that fits their equipment needs.
  • Set up a touchscreen display in Equipment Services for staff to locate equipment and touchscreen kiosks in areas like O.R.s so staff can quickly locate items. “Overall, it was straightforward to get the AeroScout software and wireless tags up and running,” said Wagner. “It was a collaborative effort.”