Navy seeks real-time location system for all hospitals

The Navy Bureau of Medicine in May kicked off a procurement to acquire a Wi-Fi based Real-Time Locations System that will track high-value medical equipment at 19 hospitals and hundreds of medical clinics worldwide.

The bureau said that when fully deployed, the RTLS will track 300,000 pieces of medical equipment, including vital-sign monitors, infusion pumps that deliver intravenous fluids, and drugs, patient oxygen systems and ultrasound systems.

The Navy wants the ability to track this equipment within a 10-foot radius. RTLS systems use Wi-Fi signals from multiple access points in a hospital to locate the position of equipment with computer-chip tags. The bureau said the system will facilitate inventory management. Future uses include tracking surgical instrument trays as well as staff and patients wearing RTLS tags.

In 2011, the Veterans Affairs Department launched its own procurement for RTLS installation in all 152 of its hospitals, which VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker said will help ensure that surgical equipment is sterilized before use.

In June 2009, the department's inspector general reported that VA hospitals in Georgia and Florida failed to properly sterilize endoscopes used for colonoscopies before reuse, a situation Baker said could have been prevented with such a tracking system.

VA unions view the staff-tracking system as a Big Brother invasion of privacy.

The Navy said a large hospital, such as its facility in Portsmouth, Va., initially needs to track at least 25,000 pieces of medical equipment with the eventual capability to track 50,000 medical devices. The RTLS software at Portsmouth will be installed on at least 14 rugged mobile computers, the bureau said.

Vendors must submit bids by Aug. 1.