BELGIUM – The GasthuisZusters Antwerpen (GZA) Hospital Group in Belgium has implemented a new temperature monitoring solution across its three hospitals. The GZA Hospital Group is now using the Wi-Fi RFID technology to monitor and manage the temperature in refrigerators that contain temperature-sensitive items, such as pharmaceuticals and blood.
 
The technology, developed by Redwood City, Calif.-based AeroScout, was deployed by PHI DATA, a Brussels-based solutions integrator operating in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, with expertise in automatic identification, data collection, localization and monitoring. For the GZA Hospital Group implementation, the solution leveraged the healthcare organization’s existing Aruba wireless infrastructure.  
 
"We examined several options before selecting PHI DATA and AeroScout," said Achiel Lejon, manager of maintenance and repair at GZA Hospital Group. "Quality control is of paramount importance, and we need strict controls with respect to temperature. We chose AeroScout Temperature Monitoring because it is a flexible and reliable solution capable of meeting our regulatory compliance requirements and, at the same time, can streamline our staff’s administrative work."
 
GZA Hospital Group is located in the Antwerp region of Belgium and has three hospitals and more than 1,000 beds. Officials said the campuses, Sint-Augustinus, Sint-Jozef and Sint-Vincentius, are responsible for approximately 25 percent of the care in the region.
 
During the rollout, PHI DATA mounted small AeroScout Wi-Fi Tags in refrigerators containing temperature-sensitive items such as medicine, blood and food. The team implemented the temperature monitoring solution by leveraging GZA Hospital Group’s existing Aruba WLAN infrastructure. The end-user software, AeroScout MobileView, was configured to automatically monitor refrigerators and send alerts if temperatures deviate from specified ranges to prevent spoilage of items and help ensure quality of care.
 
"One of the advantages of the solution is that it is part of a larger, robust set of healthcare applications, so it provides a framework on which we can continue to build," says Jan De Sitter, information and communication technology manager at GZA Hospital Group. "Since AeroScout solutions use our existing Wi-Fi network, we will be able to add applications such as staff safety and asset tracking with minimal infrastructure costs.”