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Program puts brakes on wheelchair borrowing by Heather Woolwine Public Relations The tales of wheelchair “borrowing” that Shirley Brown and Charlie Sander tell cast a humorous glow around MUSC units and departments and their problems locating and hanging onto wheelchairs.   New standard MUSC wheelchair.  But with all good-natured humor aside, the MUSC technology assessment coordinator and MUSC trade specialist/wheelchair technician outlined the details of a new wheelchair management program designed to help units purchase, repair, and track this valuable hospital commodity.   “Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking is a major trend in health care technology management. QuickFind, a form of RFID technology, is used to track moveable patient care devices,” Brown said. “The software has already been installed on more than 17 computers in the medical center and once in place, any designated employee can use the program to locate the equipment belonging to their unit, anytime and anywhere inside the building.”   The QuickFind technology locates wheelchairs any where in the hospital thanks to a small transmitting device attached to the chair. When the chair is immobile, it sends a signal every 15 minutes or so, just in case someone wants to know its whereabouts. Once on the move, the chair immediately begins to elicit more frequent signals so that it’s easily tracked.    “The software is great because it shows a floor plan of the Main and Children’s Hospitals and the chair’s exact location,” Brown said. “It also provides helpful information like a description of who owns the chair, the building it’s in, the floor, the room number, and the chair number.”   For Sander, the program is a truly welcomed change. After working in Facilities and Engineering for 18 years, he transferred to the Support Services and Biomedical Engineering Department. For the last two months, Sander and Brown have developed the operational portion of the wheelchair management plan and documented and catalogued wheelchairs for various units.   “Right now I have 15 wheelchair legs that don’t match any of the 227 wheelchairs that we’ve got,” Sander said. “And among those 227 chairs there are several different types. Not all of the parts are interchangeable amongst all the chairs so we often don’t have the correct parts or stock multiple types of one kind of part. It’s not the most cost-effective way to do things so that’s another area where this program will really help.”   By centralizing the purchasing, color, and type of chair for the MUSC Medical Center and then eventually other areas like Rutledge Tower and Hollings Cancer Center, everyone will be able to better track their unit’s chairs, not to mention the amount of money that will be saved in the process.   Repairs will occur faster and it will be easier to track and order needed supplies. Actually, benchmarking data indicate that a medical center of MUSC’s current size only needs 177 wheelchairs, so in essence, the center already has more than enough chairs. “But it’s the distribution of those chairs that has gotten out-of-hand,” Sander said. “We want MUSC staff not to hide wheelchairs but to leave them out in the open. They don’t have to hide them anymore because with this system, they will be able to locate their chairs and get them back immediately if one is missing. Management is the key.”   Another important aspect of the program is standardization of chairs that will help security personal and others easily identify the potential for occasional theft of a chair from an outside source. “Right now, people are marking the chairs as their property in different ways,” Sander said. “But eventually all the chairs will be the same and each chair will receive an identification number and unit name on the back in addition to its transmitter.”   Units also no longer have to worry about replacing or ordering new chairs, as Support Services acquired that task and will save money by ordering in bulk or using chairs already in the Equipment Distribution Center (EDC). Support Services has also stocked chairs available for customers and patients at the North Tower admissions desk, the Clinical Science and Children’s Hospital information desks, and the new information desk area in the Rutledge Tower connector.   Brown and Sander agreed that the availability of wheelchairs to every clinical area that needs them to transport patients is the goal of the program and they’ve already received positive feedback.   “I overheard a nurse in the Children’s Hospital talking about how easy it was to locate a chair in Volunteer Services when she needed one,” Sander said. “If this program will allow units and thus patient care to run more smoothly, then we’re doing a good thing and our hope is to one day coach other hospitals in this type of program as a way to track various types of equipment and hospital property.”     Friday, July 8, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. 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