System for Sensing and Recording Consumption of Medical Items During Medical Procedure

• Main Authors: KAYLOR MARY E, GRIFFITH GERALD T, GRIFFITH JEFFREY D, JACOBS JOHN G, SEWELL ANGELA M, WAGGONER TIMOTHY J, HURD REX A, DEBUSK BRIAN C
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 07.05.2015
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS OR METHODS, SPECIALLY ADAPTED FORADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORYOR FORECASTING PURPOSES; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; HEALTHCARE INFORMATICS, i.e. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONTECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR THE HANDLING ORPROCESSING OF MEDICAL OR HEALTHCARE DATA; INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTEDFOR SPECIFIC APPLICATION FIELDS; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE,COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORY OR FORECASTINGPURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR

An apparatus senses and records consumption of medical items during performance of a medical procedure. The medical items are enclosed in wrappers having RFID tags in which medical item information is encoded. The apparatus includes a shielded enclosure that attenuates radio frequency signals emanated from RFID tags disposed outside the shielded enclosure to levels that are substantially undetectable within the internal space. RFID antennas inside the shielded enclosure receive radio frequency signals emanated from RFID tags on wrappers that are removed from used items and placed inside the enclosure. An RFID reader decodes the medical item information encoded in the RFID tags. A computer processor executes a medical item inventory module including instructions for generating a post-op list of medical items consumed during the medical procedure. Item billing information and usage trend information may be derived from the post-op list. Also, Latex alerts and item expiration alerts may be generated based on information encoded in the RFID tags.