As the number of Americans with health insurance continues to increase, the healthcare industry is keeping pace with rapid growth. And while this is great news for the entire market, growth brings its own set of challenges that can put a strain on personnel and resources.
This is particularly true for laboratories and hospitals across the country that are struggling to handle a surge in the number of patients with existing staff and workflow processes. Even the task of tracking lab samples becomes problematic, yet it remains highly critical to delivering quality patient care.
Historically, medical samples have been tracked with a manual chain of custody, requiring time-consuming paperwork every time an item is moved. Even with a paper trail, however, samples are often hard to locate and identify with manual operations. Meeting the needs of rush jobs is even more daunting. There are many benefits of RFID in healthcare.
Green Dental Laboratories, a national solution provider of dental restoration products, was using a manual location and identification system to keep track of patient samples and paperwork. With 500 to 800 new cases being received per day, Green has several thousand case pans to keep track of within the lab at any given time.
The task of fulfilling these cases involves each one being handled by a number of different technicians, located in various locations within the facility, with a five-day turnaround deadline. Supervisors were spending a great deal of time locating specific case pans needed for a review or alteration, so Green turned to MSM Solutions to install its PortalTrack RFID solution to meet their laboratory needs. As many of today’s foremost labs, hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers have discovered, RFID technology in healthcare enables efficiency improvements that significantly reduce the time it takes to locate products or samples, with real-time proof of location and peace of mind.
With a custom healthcare RFID tracking system in place, Green personnel can now access the history, location and status of every order at any time. Not only does this save time and improve productivity, but the ability to quickly address any potential issues also enables the laboratory to improve customer service with greater accuracy and fast delivery.
To learn more about how Green Dental Laboratories embraced business growth with MSM Solutions’ RFID inventory tracking software, download this informative case study.
