Last week, a well-respected healthcare blog site posed some questions about the value of RTLS temperature monitoring of medications in hospitals.  Frankly, it’s a great opportunity to look at the root issues that many hospitals face when it comes to compliance.

First of all, considering that most hospitals have only manual processes today, their systems/processes as they currently exist are inherently flawed.  Many hospitals use a manual process whereby staff walks around with a pad and paper and manually writes down the temperature values to meet Joint Commission compliance. 

That is, when they’re able to do this consistently.  

It’s not uncommon for staff – in the midst of juggling dozens of other duties – to just write the same value down each day for the entire week.  RTLS temperature  monitoring is one way to correct this.  It’s also a good alternative for hospitals that want to leverage the RTLS infrastructure for other purposes within the facility, and realize those economies of scale.  Also, it’s good for hospitals that have sufficient wireless coverage.

To be fair, utilizing RTLS technology to monitor medications is not for everyone.  However, given the current process, it is an inexpensive way to begin monitoring refrigeration units within the hospital and at ambulatory sites.  Keep in mind the following scenario relayed to us from one of our clients:

“With the way we used to monitor temperatures, I’d stop and wonder — if a fridge unit fails in one of my offsite units during the middle of the night or on the weekends, will we really know about it?”

Prior to their RTLS implementation, the answer was no, because they had no way to measure the failure.  So, if a unit turns off for three hours and comes back on, what happens to the quality of the meds in the period before the unit comes back down to the proper temperature?  Their concern was patient safety.   It’s quite conceivable that they could be unknowingly administering tainted medications.  In addition, if a unit does fail and they do not monitor the unit, the lost meds can be quite expensive.

For a variety of reasons, many hospitals are not performing well in this area right now, and RTLS is a practical and proven solution to remedy this.   For further illustration, go to the Joint Commission website and do a search on “penny in the cup”.   Yes, believe it or not this is how many hospitals monitor temperature today – by seeing if a penny on top of a frozen cup of water has, at some point, “fallen” – thereby indicating that the temperature had risen.   A penny for your thoughts, indeed…