Singapore Hospital Introduces Wireless Sensors To Track Fever Cases

Channel NewsAsia

March 1, 2006

A wireless sensor system is making its rounds at the Singapore General Hospital to track patients and even staff with fever.

Margaret Wong, 60, was in hospital for a knee-replacement surgery last week. She developed a fever after the surgery and had the ThermoSensor tagged to her body. This way, nurses do not have to wake her up every four hours to monitor her temperature.

"It is very convenient for us, it is better for us, we can rest more."

The ward's staff can also check her temperature from the hospital's computers.

With the wireless sensor system in place, doctors can check a patient's condition through a tablet PC or even a PDA, so that charts like these which record patients' information will be a thing of the past in future.

SGH says the wireless system was introduced to relieve nurses of having to manually take patients' temperatures, as well as make use of Information Technology in the wards.

But it has since realized the device can also be used for contact tracing.

Dr Yang Kuang Ying, Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon at SGH, said: "During SARS, one of the main problems we have was trying to get the patient and the staff to remember who they have contact with, when and how long?

"It was near to impossible and a lot of times not very accurate so with this devices, we can objectively say where the contact between the patients or the patients and staff occur, where they are and so on."

Staff has been issued with a similar tag which uses Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID).

For now the $100,000 wireless system is on trial at the hospital's orthopedic ward, but it will gradually be extended to other wards as well.

Other hospitals, like Changi General Hospital, also plan to launch the wireless system by the middle of this year. There are also plans to use the system to monitor patients' other vital signs like heart rate and blood pressure.

The system was developed by Cadi Scientific, a local company that specializes in wireless sensing devices.