Deploying and Adapting an Indoor Positioning System in the Clinical Setting

We are living in an era where the demands on our healthcare system are relentlessly rising while at the same time key resources, such as, the number of physicians and time available to see patients, are declining. In order to diagnose what is wrong and treat it appropriately we need to be able to objectively measure and describe how our healthcare system behaves. At Massachusetts General Hospital, an innovative project weaves together industrial design, operations research, outcomes research with emerging technologies to provide a means for objectively and reliably measuring time in the primary care setting. The RFID in Clinical Workflow Project aims to provide a tool with which to understand resource allocation and to shape appropriate and effective policy. In order to successfully incorporate the use of an emerging technology that enables accurate and reliable measurement into the demanding and critical clinical setting, the multidisciplinary team used a hybrid of design techniques sourced from the different disciplines represented on the team.