By Healthcare Facilities Today

The medical linen industry has embraced technological advances to help medical facilities maintain their linens while simultaneously maintaining their budgets, according to a release posted on the Digital Journal website.  The Angelica Corp. says in the release that the latest trend is using ultrahigh frequency radio frequency identification (UHF-RFID) to automate the laundering process and increase operating efficiency.

Up until recent years, processing hospital linens was both a labor and time intensive procedure that was often filled with errors. Fortunately, medical linen laundry services have been able to simplify this process by implementing UHF-RFID tracking systems to their clients' linens.

The linens are attached with durable and waterproof UHF-RFID tags, which then accompany each piece of laundry through its lifespan. The UHF-RFID tags make it easy to consistently know where a piece of laundry is throughout the laundering and using process, and this helps to ensure an accurate inventory is available at all times. Individual pieces can also have their histories recorded with ease, including the number of times they are washed or mended.

Upgrading existing laundry systems to have UHF-RFIDs ultimately has a return on investment rate of less than 12 months, according to the relase. This technology helps medical facilities to maximize their savings within their healthcare linen laundry system over a much longer period of time, helping to keep the facility well within budget.

"We love the use of RFID technology to make tracking healthcare linens easier," says Aly Merritt, marketing manager at Angelica Corp.. "It's a relatively inexpensive technology that makes tracking and maintaining a linen supply accurate and error-proof."

Read the article.