The nation's largest active-duty domestic armed forces facility at Fort Hood, Texas, has completed installation of a radio frequency identification system to track and manage the more than 150,000 medical files of U.S. Army personnel and their family members. Army officials say the installation will save them both time and money.
The RFID system was installed by 3M and under its three-year $3.76-million contract, 3M Track and Trace Solutions will provide training and maintenance services to Fort Hood over the next year.
One of the top priorities of the system is to provide instant accessibility to the complete medical records of those that require intensive and complex healthcare services.
3M's RFID Smart Shelf System is the centerpiece of a pilot program that may be extended to other military installations after a period of evaluation.
The program to track and manage Army medical records utilizing radio frequency identification technology is being led by the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center a unit of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.
The Army is the first branch of the U.S. Armed Forces to deploy this RFID system from 3M for medical records management. Three other federal government entities are using RFID systems from 3M Track and Trace Solutions for applications not requiring Smart Shelf technology.
"The cost-efficiency and far-reaching versatility of RFID is prompting an expanding range of innovative applications in almost all facets of society," said Lem Amen, vice president, 3M Track and Trace Solutions.
The system is intended to substantially reduce errors and inefficiencies associated with manual tracking, retrieval, filing and file merging methods of medical records management at Fort Hood, where thousands of files may be in use at the base's six clinics during any given month.
Officials say such improvement would make a positive impact on operational efficiencies in healthcare delivery, the troop deployment process, and the management of medical data collection.
"The system is designed to provide automatic inventory monitoring and automatic error notification, and thereby essentially eliminate human compliance issues," said David Erickson, 3M program manager for the Fort Hood project. "The problems that arise in manually managing vast numbers of medical records are not only a waste of time and money, but, more important, they can adversely affect the delivery of medical services. And on a major military installation, they can also have an impact on the timely deployment of personnel to their assignments to other parts of the world."