Electronic Medical Oxygen Monitoring

RTLS and Life Safety Monitoring:  Reducing Risk, Lowering Costs, Improving Patient Care

As Real time location systems become more widely deployed and used to track vital equipment, especially in healthcare facilities, manufacturing plants and the hospitality industry, businesses are starting to look to integrate critical life safety equipment in their RTLS deployments. Devices such as employee distress medallions, medical oxygen tanks, fire extinguishers, AED’s (Automated External Defibrillators), IV pumps and many others are being integrated into RTLS infrastructure providing businesses with tremendous ROI through improved process and reduced inventory, as well as substantially lowered risk and improved life safety.

RTLS systems are wireless networks deployed inside of facilities, that in conjunction with RFID tags and a software layer, provide businesses with insight into exactly where on their campus each piece of tracked equipment resides at any point in time. In addition, sensors play an important role in life safety monitoring as well.

Fire Extinguishers and RTLS

Does the fire extinguisher in the northern hallway, on the 4th floor of the Green building have pressure? Has it been removed, or are there obstructions in front of it that may make it difficult or impossible to access? These sensors provide information into the “state” of the equipment, while the RTLS solution provides insight into the “Location” of each device.

This insight leads to substantial opportunities for process improvement and improved life safety. Your facility team is notified the instant an extinguisher is removed, becomes depressurized or is blocked, leading to a reduction in vandalism, rapid response to emergencies (and insight into where the extinguishers are being used), and dramatically improved maintenance and replacement cycles ensuring that these critical devices are available, accessible and ready in an emergency.

Medical Oxygen and RTLS

As another example, consider medical oxygen tanks in a hospital. Today, most organizations have a highly decentralized and inefficient system for managing their oxygen inventory. Nurses and other care providers are responsible for identifying empty cylinders and replacing them. The disorganized process leads to bloated inventory levels, unnecessary refills and life threatening emergencies when finding a full cylinder is difficult.

With RTLS systems and smart gauges, central maintenance teams are notified the moment a cylinder begins to run low and the exact location of that cylinder. They are able to ensure that there is plenty of available oxygen at each location ensuring RN’s are no longer searching for and replacing cylinders in a rush. Understanding the state of the oxygen inventory results in substantial reductions in the necessary cylinder inventory on site. Early indications are that medical oxygen monitoring utilizing an RTLS system will provide a $500 per bed / per year savings over existing processes.

Each additional type of life safety device that is brought into an RTLS system has their own compelling value proposition. To learn more about how RTLS systems and life safety monitoring systems work, contact en-Gauge today to speak with one of our experts.

Medical oxygen is a vital component of quality healthcare in the United States and around the world with tens of thousands of people a day relying on it in emergencies and for quality-of-life. With such extensive usage and resultant inconsistent processes, managing medical oxygen is a substantial and costly challenge for every healthcare operator - from hospitals to assisted living facilities and hospice providers. Electronic monitoring and tracking of medical oxygen allows healthcare businesses to substantially improve their internal processes, enhance patient care, lower risk and reduce costs. But what is electronic medical oxygen monitoring?

What is Medical Oxygen Monitoring - Electronic Medical Oxygen Monitoring Defined.

To effectively remotely monitor a healthcare facility's medical oxygen inventory, two critical pieces of data must be tracked.

1. Pressure: Each medical oxygen canister is equipped with a pressure gauge to indicate whether the tank is running low. Generally it is up to RNs and other care providers to manually keep an eye on these gauges, determine when the canisters are at risk of running out, and scramble to find and replace these cannisters. With electronically monitored oxygen, the gauges are replaced by "smart gauges" that communicate wirelessly back to a centralized monitoring location that immediately notifies the appropriate personnel when a cannister is starting to run low on air pressure. This notification can take place in a variety of ways - smartphone, email, text message - and allows healthcare providers to lower risk and avoid potentially catastrophic mistakes.

2. Location: In addition to the pressure of a particular canister, it is important to know exactly where each canister is in the facility at any point in time. As oxygen cannisters are often mobile along with patients and equipment, having real-time location information allows healthcare operators to effectively respond to medical oxygen issues, including empty canisters, or locating a full canister in the event of an emergency. Integrating the medical oxygen inventory into a healthcare facility's existing RTLS (Real-Time Location Service) allows for rapid deployment of the location tracking of medical oxygen inventory.

Benefits of Electronic Medical Oxygen Monitoring

Tracking the location and pressure of your medical oxygen inventory results in a variety of benefits for a healthcare provider including improved patient care, lower costs, lowered insitutional risk, reduced inventory and re-allocation of work to the appropriate human resources. Some highlights include:

• Process Improvement - With instant notification anytime an oxygen canister is running low and the exact location of that canister, healthcare operators can eliminate the scramble associated with identifying an empty extinguisher and finding a replacement (generally agreed to take approximately 10 to 15 minutes per RN per shift). Additionally, maintenance personnel - as opposed to high priced RNs - can manage the replacement of the canisters before they become a concern, enhancing patient care.
• Inventory Right-sizing - Because of inefficiencies in process and the wide array of individuals interacting with the medical oxygen inventory, hospitals and healthcare facilities often rent and maintain substantially more medical oxygen inventory than they need. For many organizations electronic medical oxygen monitoring can result in a 30% or more reduction in canister inventory. Additionally, improved processes and electronic monitoring of pressure can result in a near elimination of unnecessary re-charges of full or mostly full canisters (a very common problem in healthcare).
• Lower costs - Elimination of unneccessary inventory and canister refills, the redistribution of responsibilities from RNs to lower cost maintenance personnel, process improvements and procurement improvements can add up to big savings. Some hospitals estimate the savings at $500 or more per year per bed.
• Improved Care - Most importantly, electronic medical oxygen monitoring leads to improved care by dramatically lowering the risk associated with unneccesary empty or missing medical oxygen tanks.

To learn more about Electronic Medical Oxygen Monitoring and how to implement this valuable, cost-saving solution in your healthcare operation, contact en-Gauge today.