RFID Technology: The Future of Health Care Asset Management?

“The current methods for determining which surgical tools are required in a specific case are severely outdated, interrupt workflow and ultimately lead to longer procedures. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to collect the data to quantify pre-operative planning optimization, equipment usage, nor any of the countless metrics that define best practices in the operating room,” said Corr. “The novel Smart Table’s use of RFID technology for intraoperative data collection displays a clear ability to passively collect practical and applicable information during a surgical procedure. Additionally, it showcases a distinct ability to account for items in the OR much faster than current manual methods.” This study is the first of its kind to evaluate metal instrument usage via RFID technology and collect insights from intraoperative data analytics. Five surgeons performed 13 simulated surgeries on three human cadavers. Procedures included two abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs, three carotid endarterectomies, two femoropopliteal bypasses, a thoracic aortic aneurysm repair, a coronary artery bypass graft, an aortic valve replacement, an ascending aortic aneurysm repair, a heart transplant and a mitral valve replacement. A total of 139 instruments were autonomously detected, located, counted and tracked in real time with the Biotics System Beta prototype during these procedures. Out of these, only 40% were used suggesting a high degree of redundancy. Further, the “Smart Table” reduced the end-of-procedure instrument counting times by 58-87%, relative to manual counting. Corr concluded that the data analytics provided by the Biotics System can help refine instrument selection, quantitate instrument utilization and prevent surgical instrument retention inside the patient. Details of this research study are published in the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine.