German Hospital Expands Bed-Tagging Project
Featuring Thomas Jell, RFID project manager, Siemens IT Solutions and Services

Used with permission from RFID Journal, Inc.

The Bielefeld City Clinics, a public hospital in northern Germany, is moving into the second phase of a test designed to use radio frequency identification to expedite the cleaning of beds.

Working with Siemens IT Solutions and Services and bed maker Joh. Stiegelmeyer GmbH & Co., the hospital carried out the first phase of the test from June 2006 until early this year. Now, the partners plan to expand the application to additional wards so they can collect enough data to calculate how much money the hospital would save by using RFID to track all of its beds. Before the tests were conducted, no tracking system was in place.

Thomas Jell, who heads RFID projects for Siemens IT Solutions and Services, says his company implemented a similar project at Inselspital (the University of Bern Hospital) in Switzerland: From November 2005 to September 2006, Inselspital—Switzerland's oldest and largest university hospital—tagged 1,600 beds and mattresses. The facility believes it could save approximately 200,000 Swiss francs ($171,000) each year by using the RFID application. Based on the proof-of-concept, Jell says he believes the Bielefeld hospital could achieve an even higher return on its investment than the one in Bern, though he declines to reveal further details. Inselspital, meanwhile, is considering a full-scale application that would tag every bed and mattress in the hospital.