A special chip system that locates doctors and patients in real time was tested in Rambam

The idea of ​​the emergency room manager sounds like science fiction, but it came to fruition in the Home Front Command exercise: using a special chip system that locates doctors and patients in real time

Initial results are good for the experiment shared by the Technion, Rambam and the companies IBM and AeroScout. In the large exercise conducted by the Home Front Command recently, a special system based on electronic transmitter tags was tested for the first time. The tags are worn by patients and faculty members of the medical system and enable their detection in real time.

The experiment was conducted as part of a large-scale project between IBM, the Technion and the Rambam Medical Center. "During the home front command exercise at Rambam, we attached RFID tags to about 50 'casualties' and 55 staff members, doctors and nurses," says Professor Avishai Mandelbaum from the Faculty of Engineering Industry and management at the Technion. "This was the initiative of the director of the emergency room at Rambam, Dr. Shlomi Israelit, who proposed to test the system for the first time in a multi-casualty event. The staff members were tagged before the start of the exercise. The 'casualties' were tagged during the exercise, by students from our faculty The data collected allowed us to track, in real time, the arrivals, departures and movement of staff and patients in the exercise complex in the faculty laboratory - the Service Systems Engineering Laboratory - to test the feasibility of using the technology in similar future exercises and additional health systems"
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The experiment - from planning to execution - was coordinated by the faculty's doctoral student, Yariv Marmor, with the active help of Dr. Israelit, the operations manager of the emergency room, Kobi Moskowitz, and IBM researcher Boaz Carmeli. The experiment received the blessing and encouragement of Rambam's director, Professor Rafi Biar, and two His deputies - Dr. Yaron Barel and Professor Shimon Reisner, who also headed the exercise at Rambam. The system is manufactured by AeuroScout, the world's leading company in the field of Wi-Fi-based tracking and monitoring of equipment and people in the corporate space.

From the results obtained so far, it became clear that it is possible to save many working hours and effectively manage the medical staff from department to department. One of the difficulties facing the medical staff in this type of event is tracking the location of the patients and staff throughout the hospital. Even patients who are sent to a certain department may continue to move around the hospital and locating them takes a long time. Apart from the fact that the search time can be saved by clicking on the computer keyboard and getting an accurate picture of their whereabouts, the medical staff can also be moved from one department to another just by looking at the data describing the ratio between the number of patients and doctors. "In critical moments of this type, a faster response to the patient is without a doubt acute," says Shay Gatneau, product line manager at ArrowScout.

"We are currently processing the data in the Service Systems Engineering Laboratory at the Technion - to test the feasibility of using the technology in similar future exercises and additional health systems," adds Dr. Mandelbaum.

Background for the project

IBM, the Technion, and the Rambam Medical Center have been collaborating for over two years on a research project whose goal is to improve the medical service provided to patients. The partners in the project are students and researchers at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, researchers at IBM's research laboratories in Haifa, and members of the medical and nursing staff at the Rambam Medical Center. M. One of the goals of the project is the development of theories and tools that enable data-based follow-up of patients, starting with the process of receiving them in the emergency room and throughout the process of their hospitalization in the hospital. The follow-up should enable the planning, deployment and mobilization of various resources (doctors, nurses, laboratory workers, auxiliary forces) in an optimal manner. The patients will therefore receive an adequate and fast medical service, while saving costs and shortening queues. In addition, the project develops diverse tools that combine advanced information technologies, statistical methods, performance research models, industrial engineering - led by Professor Avi Tobov, psychology - led by Professor Anat Rafaeli, and human factors engineering - led by Professor Danny Gofer. The goal of the project is to contribute to an overall improvement in the medical service system.

This is a unique project born out of meetings that took place during 2006-7 between the Dean of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion, Professor Boaz Golani, and several vice presidents of IBM who visited Israel and the director of IBM Laboratories in Haifa, Mr. Oded Cohen. IBM is promoting a new research field which it calls Service Science, Management & Engineering, or SSME for short. The Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion has created a great reputation for itself in the world in the engineering and scientific aspects of SSME - and thus a natural partnership was born. This partnership identified the field of medical services as a topic of enormous importance, in which the Technion and IBM have an interest in working together. At the same time, meetings were held with the director of Rambam Hospital, Prof. Rafi Biar, who expressed enthusiasm for the idea, and suggested holding the project in several departments of the hospital. All of this led to a cooperation agreement signed between the Technion and IBM.

As part of the cooperation agreement, IBM transferred to the faculty a significant contribution that enables the research activity. The joint project is, in fact, IBM's contribution to the community, since the research and the tools that will be created will be available to patients and the medical staff, without profit. The project is guided by a steering committee representing the three parties involved - Rambam, IBM and the Technion. He received international recognition, which was reflected in a prestigious award from the American organization for Service Research & Innovation Initiative (SRII) - an award designed to mark an academic-industry partnership.