Making the Most of Your 6‑Month RFID Trial: Success Criteria, KPIs, and Rollout Plan

Doing an RFID trial in aged care right means setting clear goals, having measurable targets, and a solid plan for rolling things out. Whether you’re managing a facility or looking after quality control, knowing how to design, track, and evaluate your RFID pilot could mean the difference between a bad spend and real improvement.

In this read, you’ll find out how to set up your 6-month RFID trial with specific KPIs like scan compliance, loss rate, and turnaround time. We’ll chat about picking the right residents with their OK and looking at ROI so you can decide confidently on whether to expand or not.

Trial Goals and Current Status

Before bringing RFID tech into your aged care place, you gotta have clear goals for the trial. These should fit with your facility’s needs and future plans.

Common goals for trying RFID in aged care are:

• Cutting down on lost items and improving tracking: Whether it’s wheelchairs, medical gear, or linens, things often get lost or misplaced. RFID tags make finding these things a breeze.
• Boosting resident safety and care delivery: Using RFID to track residents or ensure they’re taking their meds as prescribed can improve accuracy and responsiveness.
• Speeding up workflows and cutting wait times: RFID data can help allocate staff more effectively and prioritize tasks.
• Checking costs and benefits before going all-in: Testing tech on a smaller scale helps you see what’s what with cost and payoff.

Setting Up Baseline Numbers

You need to capture your current process data tied to your objectives before starting the trial. For instance:

• How often assets go missing each month
• Average time it takes to find stuff or do resident checks
• Current times for important tasks to get done
• How satisfied staff and residents are concerning how smoothly things run

This baseline gives you a point to compare your RFID trial results against.

A Real-Life Example

A care home in Victoria tried out an RFID trial focused on reducing equipment loss. Before the trial? They lost about $20,000 worth of stuff every year. Once they started using RFID, they saw a 55% drop in losses, and staff could find lost items up to 30 minutes quicker. These results gave them the confidence to spread out RFID technology across more of their locations.

KPIs: Scan Compliance, Loss Rate, Turnaround Time

Measuring your six-month RFID trial’s success depends a lot on tracking key performance indicators that line up with your goals.

1. Scan Compliance

Scan compliance shows how often RFID tags get scanned or read properly. It’s a direct marker of how engaged users are and how reliable the system is.

• Why It Matters: High compliance rates mean staff consistently use RFID tools as expected. Low compliance might point to hiccups with the tech, sluggish staff involvement, or process issues.
• How to Measure: Use logs from the RFID system to get a percentage of successful scans over attempts for the tagged assets or when interacting with residents.
• Target: Aim for at least 90% in the first few months, getting better as folks get used to it.

2. Loss Rate

Loss rate shows how often equipment or items with RFID tags get lost or go unaccounted for.

• Why It Matters: One main reason for using RFID in aged care is cutting down on item loss, which affects costs and availability.
• How to Measure: Compare lost item counts and their value during the trial to your baseline data.
• Target: A 30%-50% drop in losses means you’re on the right track and might be a good reason to keep going.

3. Turnaround Time

Turnaround time is how quickly tasks involving RFID-tagged items or residents get done, like finding equipment or finishing resident checks.

• Why It Matters: Speeding up task completion helps make everything run smoother for residents.
• How to Measure: Note how long it takes for staff to complete tasks that involve RFID, tracked by timestamps on RFID scans.
• Target: Aim to cut down turnaround time by 20%-40% compared to where you started.

Using RFID KPIs in Aged Care

Keeping an eye on these KPIs gives you a full picture of how the system is doing. For instance, if scan compliance is high but turnaround times are still dragging, this might mean there are issues with workflow or system integration. Regularly checking these KPIs through the trial helps catch and fix problems early.

Industry research backs these KPIs as important for RFID in aged care. According to recent studies (check out Asepsis), facilities that use these metrics better manage operational risks and show faster ROI.

Resident Sample Size & Consent

Picking the right folks for your RFID trial and managing how you get consent are super important, especially with privacy, ethics, and healthcare rules in play.

What’s a Good Number of Residents to Include?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer here. Things that affect this decision include:

• The size of your facility and who’s there
• Variety in care needs and risk profiles (like residents prone to wandering—think dementia)
• Which operations RFID will target (meals, mobility aids, etc.)
• Tech limits like scanner reach and tag stock

A decent approach is to start with a pilot group that makes up 10-20% of all residents or around 20-50 people for medium-sized facilities. This group gives enough data for good analysis while staying low-risk.

Consent and Privacy

Data privacy and ethical consent are huge:

• Get written informed consent from residents or their legal reps before tagging or tracking.
• Explain clearly what data gets collected, how long it sticks around, and what it will be used for.
• Point out your compliance with health laws like the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
• Make sure residents can opt out or ask for their tags to be removed whenever.

Make it easy with simple info sheets and by being upfront with any questions.

A Case Study

There was this aged care center that did an RFID trial centered on residents with dementia who might wander. They got families on board early with the consent process, sharing how they planned to keep data secure. This openness earned them a 95% consent rate from the residents they targeted. Being transparent also helped staff be more accepting of the trial.

Assessing ROI and Deciding to Expand

About six months in, you gotta look over all the info and decide if you’re ready to roll out RFID tech across your facility.

Figuring Out ROI for RFID in Aged Care

Work out ROI by comparing:

• Direct cost savings: Less loss/theft of equipment, less OT, fewer replacement buys
• Operational efficiency wins: Speedier task completion gives staff more time to care for residents
• Better resident experiences: Shorter wait times, better safety and mobility support
• You-can’t-put-a-price-on-it benefits: Happier staff, better policy compliance, improved reputation

Subtract the total investment costs (like hardware, software, training, and maintenance) from these benefits for a clear picture.

Using KPIs to Guide Your Decision

• If scan compliance stayed below 70%, think about re-training or tweaking the system before expanding.
• If you didn’t see a drop in loss rate or turnaround times, there might be holes in the workflow or tech.
• Positive KPI trends support investment and say you’re ready operationally.

Mapping Out a Rollout Plan

When results pave the way for scaling up, put a rollout plan in place that includes:

• A timeline broken down by units, floors, or departments
• Training schedules for staff informed by pilot feedback
• Data monitoring plans with focused KPIs
• Support and maintenance logistics
• Communication plans for residents and their families

A Real Example

After a pilot that lessened asset loss by 45% and turnaround times by 35%, a big Aussie aged care provider spread RFID tech to four more sites. They took it step by step by care units and brought RFID data into their electronic care records system to keep things streamlined.

Wrapping It Up

Running a 6-month RFID trial in aged care needs clear goals, measurable KPIs (think scan compliance, loss rate, turnaround time), and careful resident selection with informed permission. Get your baseline data set up, keep an eye on RFID KPIs, and evaluate ROI transparently so you can make smart calls about full deployments.

Successful trials lead the way for better asset management, increased resident safety, and boosted operational efficiency—all key to providing top-notch aged care services.

If you’re thinking about an RFID trial, start with clear goals and focus on practical, measurable outcomes. Use your findings to tweak processes and earn trust with residents, their families, and staff.

Thinking about starting your RFID trial in aged care?
Reach out to the folks at Asepsis for hands-on advice on picking the right RFID tech, shaping your trial, and making sense of KPI results. Make your pilot work with trusted insights and tried-and-true methods.

Begin the journey towards efficient, secure, and resident-centered aged care today.