In hospitals, time not only means money but can also mean lives.

In a recent survey (February 2009) of almost 1,000 nurses conducted by GS1 UK and Nursing Times, it was revealed that nurses lose up to one quarter of their working day looking for medical items. This is equivalent to 40 hours per month or more than £900 million of salary expenditure.

Wasting time looking for portable medical equipment such as IV pumps, beds, mattresses or smaller items which can be hidden away in cupboards, detracts from patient care. When items such as mattresses are not readily available, the hospital often has to rent others, incurring significant expenses and delays. Finding items that require servicing and maintenance can also cost valuable time. 

Being able to track and locate assets that are shared between departments or wards within your hospital, and report on where equipment is and its level of utilisation, will give you the following benefits:

• More control and get the best value out of your assets
• Nursing staff will spend less time looking for things and more on patient care
• Engineers will be able to locate assets when they need to be maintained or repaired
• For some hospitals the sheer fact of getting better utilisation of IV pumps and therefore cutting down on the number needing to be purchased provided a business case for an asset tracking system to be implemented.

Using a GS1 standard key like a Global Individual Asset Identifier (GIAI) within an RFID tag or bar code linked to one of the many asset tracking solutions on the market will enable hospitals to identify and track their assets as they move within the hospital estate and more importantly when the asset is taken to another site or to the patient’s home.

Further information

If you would like more information about the GS1 UK Asset tracking in healthcare, please contact David Lyon, GS1 UK on +44 (0)20 7092 3532