backboard GPS

[Ken Springhorn]

Does anyone have any ideas or ways to keep track of backboards---Our backboard have a tendency to disappear after transfers or call sometime.  boss was thinking of ways to put a tracking chip on the backboard somehow.  Anyone ever pursued this avenue.
Thanks
 
Ken Springhorn
Jackson County ambulance Service
Carbondale, Illinois

[Mic Gunderson]

Ken,

I'm working with a client on a project along the same lines. A few vendors in the US EMS market are now offering some product / service packages that use of RFID tags in what is often referred to as asset management. Non-disposable splints, ECG cables, radios, tablets/laptops, jump bags, O2 cylinders, defib/monitors, etc. can also be tagged and checked automatically when you leave the scene so they are not accidentally left behind. It's a rapidly evolving field of technology.

Google "ambulance RFID" and you'll see hits from some of the vendors and some case reports from ambulance services around the country.

--- Mic

Mic Gunderson

President, IPS

PO Box 2128

Lakeland, FL 33806

863-838-3295

m...@onlineips.com 

www.onlineips.com

www.linkedin.com/in/micgunderson

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[Kevin McGinnis]

Mic, 

I have been chasing an RFID system for years, but the tags haven't gotten small/cheap enough for use with supplies. Any changes there?

Thanks,

Kevin
Kevin McGinnis

207-512-0975

McGi...@nasemso.org for national issues

ch...@mobilehealthmedics.pro for  North East Mobile Health Services communications

[Mic Gunderson]

Kevin,

For passive tags, they are getting incredibly small – check this out:

http://www.geek.com/chips/flexible-20-micron-thick-rfid-tags-can-be-embedded-in-paper-1553931/

The cost for passive tags can get down near a buck. The variety of active tag technologies is amazing. Overall, it looks a lot more feasible now than just a couple years ago. 

For supplies, I would probably not tag a box of 4x4s, but if you use inventory controlled / standardized / wrapped plastic supply bins (speed loaders) to restock your ambulance shelves, that quite feasible and practical. Managing supplies (rather than equipment) fits more in with a supply chain / inventory management strategy than an asset management strategy, but it's the same technology.

A brief article on RFID technology in EMS is going to be in the upcoming issue of EMS Insider.

All the best,

--- Mic

[Ken Springhorn]

Great article---does something like this allow for tracking while lets say enroute from one facility to another.  For example---backboard goes out on transfer--winds up staying with patient at another facility.  Info does not get passed on---couple of days later someone realizes we are short a cot.  Need to go to either computer or GPS locator and see where the backboard is while sitting at a computer.  something like LoJack
 
thanks
 

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Date: Wed, 8 May 2013 21:38:32 -0400
Subject: Re: backboard GPS
From: mic.gu...@gmail.com
To: nemsma-...@googlegroups.com

[Mic Gunderson]

For something like that you'd need an active GPS tag with some major transmitter power. Too big to be practical. Alternative I'm looking into is putting RFID readers in the dirty equipment rooms of the local EDs (where they put the EMS backboards, non-disposable splints, etc. to be picked up.)