With the ever-changing state of the healthcare and medical industry, providers need to focus their time and resources on providing patients with the care and attention they expect while simultaneously managing costs.

This often proves challenging, as anywhere from 10 to 20% of mobile hospital assets are lost or stolen, at an average cost of nearly $3,000 per item. Forty percent of hospital pharmacy dollars go towards rush orders that could easily be prevented with improved asset tracking. A full three-quarters of maintenance time is often spent searching for these items, as is up to a third of nurses’ time—taking their focus away from providing quality care. The biggest challenge for many hospitals and offices is helping an already overextended staff spend less time on non-care activities.

There’s a better way for healthcare organizations to maximize efficiency and reduce waste; an RFID solution will help them know what they have, where they have it, and where it all needs to go to keep care running smoothly. RFID allows users to track and manage their mobile assets and patients with a custom blend of handheld, mobile or fixed readers. No line of sight is needed for RFID data capture, allowing the user to capture multiple tag in a single pass without moving equipment. RFID is also ideal for drug or supply closets that need consistent monitoring, reading hundreds of tags per second for quick and easy inventory.

In addition, patient rooms, labs, procedure areas, stock rooms and more can be scanned and analyzed in just a few seconds. There are a myriad of ways for your healthcare customers to implement and utilize the benefits of RFID:

Asset Tracking – Detect and timestamp the movements of critical assets to locate them quickly when needed. Reduce equipment loss and theft to improve care and productivity. Use collected data to manage equipment flow processes and resource planning.

Inventory Control – Provide automated, continuous inventory monitoring as well as an alert when minimum levels are reached or when stock is expiring. Ensure availability of products and treatments, preventing rush orders.

Healthcare IT Asset Management – Locate and potect platforms that could have private financial or clinical data. Demonstrate HIPAA data security compliance.

Patient Tracking – Prevent medical errors due to misidentification, and alert nearby personnel and first responders should an event occur. Provide secure, temporary ID access for relatives and visitors.

Document/Data File Tracking – Safeguard patient records from loss or unauthorized access, or provide limited but secure access as needed with compliance tracking. Ensure clinical access without compromising confidentiality.

To help customers improve efficiency, security and overall patient care, Motorola offters a complete line of RFID solutions to simplify deployment, lower costs and maximize ROI. The MC3190-Z RFID Reader features a lightweight, ergonomic design to for all-day comfort and user-friendly color touchscreen. Its pinpoint locationing technology combined with Motorola’s MAX RFID Antenna reduces the need for tag/scanner alignment, and it’s rugged enough to withstand the rigors of daily use in healthcare and medical environments. What’s more, Motorola’s MAX Data Capture technology combines both RFID and bar code scanning into a single device.