RFiD Discovery has launched a new automated contact tracing solution designed to help hospitals rapidly identify potential exposure events, support infection prevention teams and reduce the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).
“Our solution has already been implemented in a hospital in Germany and has delivered very promising early results,” Simon Dawkins, Global Director of Healthcare and Pharma at RFiD Discovery, told Building Better Healthcare.
While Dawkins could not disclose the name of the hospital in Germany, he did say that the contact tracing solution solved a lot of the problems that staff experienced when it came to tracking infections.
“Previously, staff at the German hospital had to spend a significant amount of time manually identifying potential contacts, a process that was both time-consuming and prone to error,” said Dawkins.
With the contact tracing solution in place, Dawkins said the German hospital was able to rapidly and accurately identify potential contacts, reduce delays and remove the risk of human error at a critical point in the infection control process.
Dawkins said the UK-based company is currently in discussions with both existing and prospective NHS customers who are interested in implementing the system within their hospitals.
However, he was unable to disclose specific NHS trusts at this stage.
Faster detection for HCAIs
HCAIs continue to affect millions of patients worldwide each year, leading to prolonged hospital stays, increased mortality and significant pressure on already stretched clinical resources.
According to the latest UK Health Security Agency survey, HCAIs were present in 7.6% of patients in 2023, marking a slight increase on previous figures and underscoring the ongoing infection control challenges in clinical settings.
In complex hospital environments, traditional manual contact tracing can be slow, resource-intensive and incomplete, limiting the ability of infection control teams to respond quickly and effectively.
RFiD Discovery’s Automated Contact Tracing for Infection Control solution captures the accurate proximity and location data across hospital settings, enabling faster, data-driven decision-making when infection incidents occur.
Dawkins said that a formal case study on the automated contact tracing solution is currently in development, but that the full data set is not yet available.
How does automated contact tracing work?
The automated contact tracing uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, with patients wearing BLE wristbands and staff carrying BLE-enabled ID badges.
When individuals or tagged assets come into close proximity, the system automatically records interactions, including duration, distance, time and location, without the need for manual input.
BLE gateway readers and anchors installed throughout the hospital capture this data and feed it into a central platform, providing real-time alerts, visual dashboards and detailed reports.
Once an infected individual is identified, infection prevention teams can rapidly determine who may have been exposed, where interactions took place and which areas may require targeted cleaning or further investigation.
“Staff can also quickly report suspected infections via an app, enabling rapid investigation and response. In addition, if the hospital also tracks medical assets and beds, they can also use the system to identify whether medical devices or beds have been in contact with an infected individual, ensuring that affected equipment can be promptly decontaminated,” said Dawkins.
Quick integration into hospital systems
The system also offers high-precision risk modelling and has configurable rules that can be tailored to different infectious diseases and local hospital policies, which provides a more nuanced and proportionate response to infection incidents.
It also includes asset tracking, patient flow optimisation, sterilisation tracking and automated cleaning workflows and integrates with the existing hospital infrastructure.
It can be deployed as a standalone, entry-level system or expanded to support wider real-time location services.