Smart Sense Technology for Safe Place Infant Security Solutions

RF Technologies, a leading healthcare security and safety solutions vendor, has recently released the Smart Sense technology for utilization in Safe Place Infant Security systems.

This system has a stretchy, soft banding substance and a technologically enhanced infant transmitter integrated in bracelet form for notifying the hospital staff reliably whenever a Safe Place bracelet is cut, tampered with, or is loose.

The development of Smart Sense was in response to demand from the clinical advisory council of RF Technologies and various OB nurses responsible for protection of infants. This bracelet is the industry’s first security system that has incorporated multiple techniques for skin sensing-based infant protection. Besides the bracelet’s present ability to sense whether the band is cut, the Smart Sense technology also uses other detection methods like stretch of the band, distance between the skin and the transmitter, and the temperature change. It is possible to configure all the three detection techniques and their levels of sensitivity at the patient, unit or system level. This enables every hospital to adjust the settings of the alarm for achieving the optimal system performance, resulting in reduced nuisance alarms as compared to traditional skin sensing infant security devices.

The banding material of Smart Sense is stretchy and soft, akin to a woven infant sock. It permits reduced slippage and better fit since it is not composed of rigid materials. The band’s elasticity permits it shrink comfortably around the wrist or ankle when a new born loses water weight.  This feature along with the enhanced skin sensing technology of Smart Sense reduces the amount of size adjustments required to be made by the nursing staff and lowers the likelihood of nuisance alarms due to loose bracelets. The patient is protected even when the bracelet loosens since the Safe Place system is able to inform that the bracelet has loosened.

Smart Sense infant bands and security transmitters can be ordered through RF Technologies and will be shipped from August 2010. They will be shipped through the Safe Place Infant Security Systems.

RF Technologies’ Vice President of Engineering Wyndham Gary informed that nurses prefer a pliable and soft infant security bracelet with the technology to notify them when the bracelet is loosened or tampered. Existing skin technologies based on a single sensing measurement generate nuisance alarms often. Gary revealed that this prompted RF Technologies to incorporate three separate detection techniques in Smart Sense.