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DOI: 10.1177/1553350606298971 Auto Identification Technology and Its Impact on Patient Safety in the Operating Room of the FutureDepartment of Nursing, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, mtegan{at}partners.org
Harvard Medical School and Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts Automatic identification technologies, such as bar coding and radio frequency identification, are ubiquitous in everyday life but virtually nonexistent in the operating room. User expectations, based on everyday experience with automatic identification technologies, have generated much anticipation that these systems will improve readiness, workflow, and safety in the operating room, with minimal training requirements. We report, in narrative form, a multi-year experience with various automatic identification technologies in the Operating Room of the Future Project at Massachusetts General Hospital. In each case, the additional human labor required to make these `labor-saving' technologies function in the medical environment has proved to be their undoing. We conclude that while automatic identification technologies show promise, significant barriers to realizing their potential still exist. Nevertheless, overcoming these obstacles is necessary if the vision of an operating room of the future in which all processes are monitored, controlled, and optimized is to be achieved.
Key Words: Auto-ID • Operating Room of the Future • operating room efficiency • radio frequency identification • patient safety • data integration • operating room supply management • perioperative systems design
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