TY - JOUR T1 - Radio-frequency Tracking of Respiratory Equipment: Rationale and Early Experience at the Cleveland Clinic JF - Respiratory Care DO - 10.4187/respcare.02545 SP - respcare.02545 AU - James K. Stoller AU - Vincent Roberts AU - David Matt AU - Leslie Chom AU - Madhu Sasidhar AU - Robert L. Chatburn Y1 - 2013/07/02 UR - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/early/2013/07/02/respcare.02545.abstract N2 - Background: When respiratory therapists (RTs) seek respiratory care equipment, finding it quickly is desirable, both to expedite patient care and to avert respiratory therapists’ wasting time. To optimize RTs’ ability to quickly locate mechanical ventilators, we developed and implemented a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagging system at Cleveland Clinic called eTrak. Methods: The Clinical Engineering and Information Technology groups at Cleveland Clinic collaboratively developed a WiFi-based RFID program that used active RFID tags (AeroScout Inc., Redwood City, California). Altogether, 218 ventilators and 82 non-invasive ventilator devices as well as a variety of non-respiratory equipment were tagged beginning in March 2010. The difference in time to locate equipment (pre-and post implementation) was assessed with a Mann Whitney Rank Sum test; p<0.05 indicated significance. Results: eTrak was adopted with a mean of 145 log-ons weekly over the first year of use. Use of eTrak was associated with a decreased time required for RTs to locate mechanical ventilators (from a median of 18 minutes [range 1 –45 minutes] pre-eTrak to 3 (range 1 –6) minutes post-eTrak (p <0.001). Surveys of RTs regarding whether equipment was hard to find before vs. after implementing eTrak showed a non-significant trend toward improvement. Conclusion: Implementation of an RFID tracking system with active tags placed on respiratory equipment was associated with shortened time for RTs to locate mechanical ventilators and trends towards enhanced satisfaction with finding equipment. These results extend the sparse experience with RFID tagging in healthcare and suggest benefits that warrant further investigation. ER -