Improving surgical instrument management through RFID technology

The company’s sterility tracking solution for surgical instrument management provides real-time inventory data of available specula and surgical trays to improve logistics, efficiency and patient safety. By combining RFID hardware and software to manage and clean surgical instruments, we are able to provide a complete tracking solution and also provide GS1 compliant tags and equipment.

Reusable invasive medical devices (RIMD) are constantly being circulated between operating rooms, clean rooms and storage rooms. Therefore, knowing where the available medical devices are is critical to clinical procedures. With our RFID tracking solutions, readers can detect their movement from the operating room to the sterilization room to storage, providing visibility into all medical devices. The solution provides an accurate status of the device, whether it is in use, in storage or in a state of cleaning and sterilization, so search time can be minimized and surgical plans can be adjusted in time for unexpected situations.

The visibility of the location of medical devices helps improve utilization to reduce usage costs, while the identification of individual medical devices can also completely record various surgical procedures. It can also help improve the use of sterile medical devices because it can identify and resolve problems with the device during use.

Various surgical instruments

RFID surgical instrument trajectory tracking

RFID tracking technology system

RFID electronic tag readers are installed at the entrance and exit of the sterilization area, autoclave area and sterile storage room. Each item to be tracked (such as an instrument tray or an endoscope) is equipped with a dedicated passive RFID tag that can withstand standard sterilization procedures, such as high temperature, high pressure and high humidity environments.

Location information of surgical instruments

When the signal of the RFID electronic tag on the medical device is captured by the reader, the reader sends the location information to the database of the RFID system. This provides a clear understanding of the location and status of individual medical devices, helping medical staff quickly locate them and reducing search time if they are Stored in the wrong location.

Surgical instrument usage rate

Improved location visibility of sterile surgical equipment means Hospitals can count how often they are used and understand how many instruments are available and in reserve at a given time. This helps optimize surgical instrument inventory levels to eliminate unnecessary redundant inventory while ensuring that surgical instruments are always available.