PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA – A recent study by a technology research organization concludes that asset tracking systems have yet to prove they can provide a return on investment for hospitals.
ECRI, a Plymouth Meeting, Pa.-based not-for-profit health services research organization, said the technology isn’t widely installed yet and there’s not enough evidence to show that a hospital-wide implementation would provide enough hard savings to justify the expense.
“We don’t think returns on investment have been demonstrated in a way that’s irrefutable,” said Chris Lavanchy, engineering director in the health devices group for ECRI. “When you start peeling the onion, (vendors’) arguments start to crumble.”
Companies offering the technology disputes ECRI’s findings, contending that hospitals are using asset tracking technology and showing a return on investment.
Lavanchy said ECRI’s research focused on asset tracking rather than people tracking, an approach that isn’t as far along and carries some negative connotations. Vendor technologies include radio frequency devices, infrared and ultrasound.
Asset tracking can involve simple device location, so hospitals can locate devices, or more advanced applications such as inventory
optimization and workflow improvement.
Vendors tout a return on investment for inventory optimization and workflow improvement, but achieving a return requires a
broader implementation, more work and more planning, Lavanchy said. ROI is expected to come from being able to locate and return unneeded rented medical devices and preventing the purchase of too many expensive pieces of equipment.
Implementing a system requires cooperation from staff – for example, moving tracked medical devices to specific locations when they’re not in use or pushing a button on a tag when they’ve relocated it.
“It’s not a hard task, but it is a workflow change,” Lavanchy said. “You must have high compliance, like 99 percent, for it to be effective.”
Only a few “early adopter” facilities have implemented systems and there are only a handful of large implementations, Lavanchy said. Some of those installations have involved deals from vendors looking for reference sites for their technologies.
“That’s not really demonstrating the business model,” he said. “If hospitals have a well-defined and immediate asset tracking objective, they should consider this. Others would benefit by waiting for the technology to mature and for more stability in the market. Most hospitals looking at asset tracking should consider whether low-tech solutions are the better way to go.”
John Pantano, vice president of marketing for Radianse, an Andover, Mass.-based supplier of indoor positioning technology, took issue with the report. Patient tracking is of high interest to Radianse customers, he said, and many of the chief operating officers they contact are concerned with improving patient flow and bed turnaround times.
Pantano said the company’s customers have realized paybacks.
“We have a customer that showed a payback with equipment tracking in 15 months,” he said. “And there’s definitely a trend toward hospitals going enterprisewide with these applications. We’re starting to see more requests for information and request for proposals for enterprisewide installations.”
He said studies indicate that as many as 45 percent of hospitals are budgeting for an RFID solution in the next 12 to 18 months.