Disaster recovery is a chaotic and dangerous business. Communications is key. The Advanced Network Technologies division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology has started an interesting program called RFID-Assisted Localization and Communications for First Responders.
InnerWireless Wins Carilion Health System
InnerWireless has won the distributed antenna business at Carilion Health System in Virginia (press release). The agreement covers 3 of its 10 facilities and includes 676 bed Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
existing clinical applications, handheld devices and PDAs, and to improve cellular applications used by the
hospital staff. Carilion also plans to
use the system to improve two-way radio communication for its security
personnel, implement the use of VoIP phones and pursue RF location solution
options for asset tracking.
In my opinion, InnerWireless' sweet spot is in the distribution of centralized RF systems like cellular carrier microcells, pagers and two-way radios. Given that 802.11 network design is highly dependent on application specific site survey requirements, it is very important to know what you want to get out of your 802.11 WLAN before its designed and deployed. One of InnerWireless' greatest strengths is the RF engineering that goes into the design of their systems – as long as Carilion anticipates all their needs, including capacity, they should be well positioned to leverage all the potential benefits of their investment. They would also be wise to anticipate future adoption of 802.11a, as at least two medical device vendors are developing radios for that band.
Hospitals, being very focused on capital purchases, tend to discount the importance of the services and expertise their vendors can provide. It can be hard to get some hospitals to pay for these important services, but they scrimp on those services at their own peril.
The press release notes that Carilion also wanted to, “leverage their investment in the hospital’s existing Cisco network.” Rumors have been going around that Cisco refuses to support their WLAN infrastructure that's deployed on a distributed antenna system. Perhaps a reader can confirm or deny this. Also noted in the release is the InnerWireless RFID system. This system leverages their Wireless Utility, but is really a separate system.
Pictured right is a shot of part of InnerWireless' display at HIMSS '06.
Insulet Omni-Pod Wireless Insulin Delivery System
In what is a nice complement to Dexcom's continuous glucose monitor, four year old company Insulet Corp. has a wireless insulin injector called the OmniPod. This privately funded company has raised $120 million in five rounds from a number of top name VCs. The management roster is populated with an pretty impressive list of medical device industry veterans. They got their 510(k) in January of 2005 (you can read the summary here).
The product was introduced at American Association of Diabetes Educators Meeting & Exhibition in Washington, D.C., last August. The OmniPod itself is a small white device that
is worn on the skin like an infusion set. The OmniPod integrates the infusion
set, automated inserter, and insulin reservoir, and delivers insulin according
to programmable instructions delivered wirelessly from a wireless controller called the Personal Diabetes
Manager (PDM). There's a great product over view here at DiabetesInControl.com.
There is no tubing connecting the OmniPod to the PDM, nor is there any tubing
on the pod itself. The OmniPod is worn comfortably and discreetly beneath the
clothing, and the PDM can be carried separately in a backpack or purse. Imagine
no snagging or tangling the tubing.
Filling the pod could not be easier. Think of how much spend time we spend
showing our patients how to get the bubbles out of the syringe and making sure
there are not bubbles in the tubing. You don’t have to worry about that
anymore. Your patient simply injects the insulin into the pod and then the pod
actually primes itself removing the air, presto no bubbles.
The secret sauce in this system is the injector. Rather than try to squeeze a motor into the OmniPod to extend and retract, Insulet uses SMA (shape memory alloy) Wire Activation technology. Shape memory alloy metals are made
from combinations of two or more elements, exhibit hardness and elasticity
properties that change radically at distinct temperatures. SMAs
can be formed into a shape, and then set to
that shape by a high heat treatment. When cooled, they may be bent, stretched
or deformed (within limits) and then with subsequent moderate heating, they can recover some or all of the
deformation. Very cool.
HIT Spending to Continue Growth
Forrester reports that HIT spending is set to increase by 3.1 percent this year. The bulk of the growth is centered in clinical software in larger hospitals and IDNs. Hospitals are also increasing their investment in data storage. As most hospitals have at least started their adoption of PACS, many are looking at how they can leverage their archive for cardiology and other disparate data generators in the enterprise.
industries,” [Eric] Brown [vice president of healthcare and life sciences at Forrester] said. “The fortunes of most companies go up and down
with the economy or as competition heats up. There’s a different set of
drivers that have to do with regulation, reform, product design,
demographics and rapidly rising pharmaceutical costs. That speeds up
the cycle.”
Heath care is definitely a strange beast when compared to other industries. However in the 20 odd years I've been in health care, I've yet to see these differences drive market adoption that is anywhere close to rates in other industries.
RFID in Health Care
Healthcare Informatics has a good piece on RFID, although I would take issue with one of their key premises – namely that RFID prospects in health care mirror those of the larger picture of the technology. As a whole, the RFID industry has seen the vast majority of adoption revolve around passive RFID used to track the movement of parts and finished products through a rather constrained logistical flow. In contrast, RFID adoption in health care has been driven mainly by active RFID to track people, and coordinating the logistics of delivering the product – health care. Assembly line metaphors aside, health care is a service, whereas RFID adoption outside of health care is about manufacturing and distribution. What product distribution logistics there are in health care are usually handled as an added service by suppliers like Baxter, McKesson, Cardinal and their competitors.
The article is right on in noting the general lack of mastery of RFID technology and its application in health care.
providers say that, by and large, executives responsible for making the
decision on how or whether to deploy RFID are not even cognizant of the
most basic characteristics of the technology’s main branches — active
and passive RFID tags. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that an ever-increasing amount of
information gathered by early adopters is providing compelling evidence that RFID technology — if preceded by
careful due diligence and a clear understanding of the underlying problems a deployment is meant to solve — can
deliver on those promises of profound disruption.
These days, RFID buyers are reaching breakeven within 12 to 18 months, but the key is “careful due diligence and a clear understanding of the underlying problems.” I might add, that a thorough vendor selection process is also needed. There is no RFID silver bullet; several active RFID technologies exist in the market because they are best suited for certain applications. Matching the application with the optimal technology is key to achieving that 12 to 18 pay back. According to Radianse founder and CTO, Mike Dempsey, “You can't improve what you can't measure.”
be a business problem-driven decision,” Dempsey says.
“Tracking Band-Aids points one way, tracking people
and staff points to another, and they need to understand
the implications — that is, the systems that track people
and staff can also track equipment. The systems that track
Band-Aids can’t. Is that important?”
The story goes on to raise privacy issues, a bone of contention in the broad deployment of passive RFID tags in distribution chains. The privacy issue regarding patient tracking in health care is a red herring. I'm not aware of a single instance of patient tracking raising privacy objections. True, there have been occasional “big brother” concerns about tracking staff but after initial implementation those concerns have faded away.
One point not raised in the article is the fact that RFID is an enabling technology that depends on a software application to deliver full value. Just knowing where people and things are in the operating room is of little value if there is not a workflow context with alerts and automated notification to smooth the flow of surgical cases.
