With the tagging system, a mother and her baby are fitted with pre-matched tags with hypo-allergenic straps upon their arrival at the maternity ward, in addition to the manual tags worn by both mother and baby in the labour ward moments after childbirth. The mother's tag is fitted to her wrist, while the baby's tag is fitted to his ankle. When the baby is brought to his mother, the mother tag will automatically verify if the baby is the correct one through a green light display and a pleasant tune on the mother's tag when both tags match. If they do not match, a red light will flash on the mother's tag and a warning beep to alert the mother and ward nurse.
The baby's tag is tamper-proof and an alert will sound if unauthorised individuals attempt to remove it. The baby's tag also has a skin-detection feature, where an alert will sound should the tag become loose. This is important as newborns often lose weight during the first few days after birth.
Parents can also press a button on the mother's tag at any time, to check if the baby matches. This "on-demand" feature helps alleviate parents' anxiety as they can verify if they have the right baby at any time. TMC is the first maternity hospital in Singapore with a tagging system that comes with such a feature.
In addition, the system allows hospital staff to track the location of mother and baby in real-time. A computer screen installed in all the nurseries, shows the real-time location of every mother-and-baby paired tags, as well as the mother's particulars and bed number. An alarm will go off if there is a mother-baby mismatch or an unauthorised removal or tamper of the baby tag.
When the mother and baby are ready to be discharged from the hospital, the ward nurse will ensure both tags match before they are removed. The parents can then leave the hospital with the assurance that they have the right baby.
"Being one of the leading healthcare providers for women and children in Singapore, ensuring the health and safety of our patients is our top priority. We constantly look out for new ways to provide innovative services that are unique, relevant and integrated, for the benefit of our patients and their families. We have been exploring infant tagging systems for more than a year upon receiving funding support from SPRING Singapore. We are happy to work with Cadi Scientific to implement this solution. We believe that this tagging system will not only give our new mothers peace of mind but also enhance their total experience after the delivery of their new bundle of joy at TMC," said Mrs Mega Shuen, General Manager of TMC.
"We developed our second generation of the Cadi SmartSense Infant Safety Solution in response to requests from hospital staff who had tried out other earlier solutions. This included the on-demand feature, having smaller and more comfortable tags, the user-friendly web-based dashboard and battery replaceable tags to save cost. We are confident that this new generation system will further improve patient experience, enhance patient care and effectively improve staff efficiency in the hospital," said Dr Zenton Goh, CEO Cadi Scientific.
About Cadi Scientific
Established in 2003, Cadi Scientific is a Singapore-based healthcare technology company, developing wireless sensing and tracking devices for the healthcare sector. The company's flagship product, Cadi SmartSense Enterprise(TM) is a revolutionary healthcare RFID wireless platform for hospitals that enables automated patient vital signs monitoring and location tracking. Cadi Scientific also develops and markets robust and easy-to-use healthcare products for the consumer market. http://www.cadi.com.sg/
About Thomson Medical Pte Ltd
Incorporated in 1977, Thomson Medical is one of Singapore's leading healthcare providers for women and children. It owns and operates Thomson Medical Centre, a fully integrated hospital that provides a comprehensive range of facilities and services in obstetrics and gynaecology (O&G) and paediatric services. Thomson Medical also operates a network of women's clinics island-wide, as well as specialty centres for skin, dental, fertility, lifestyle, women cancer, paediatric and Chinese medicine.
SOURCE Thomson Medical Pte Ltd
Editor: PR Wire
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
