Case Study: Ochsner Health Systems

By RF IDeas Inc.

More than ever before, businesses must try to get the greatest possible returns on their capital expenditures, no matter how long ago they were purchased. With the help of RF IDeas, companies can breathe new life into their old, costly security systems. Convergence enables you to build upon your installed base of employee ID badges and use them for other applications throughout the interior of the building. It is illustrated clearly in the example below, in which a more versatile ID badge is now being used for building access and tracking time and attendance of hospital employees.

With over 11,000 employees at seven hospitals and 37 other facilities throughout Southeast Louisiana, tracking hourly employees had become a daunting task for Ochsner Health Systems. Human Resources management knew that the accounting department could spend less time and money counting and verifying time cards if they found a way to automate time and attendance without replacing the initial investment in Kronos clocks and associated infrastructure.

Ochsner Health Systems, in cooperation with Omni Systems, the security integrator, evaluated the disparate systems and determined that HID iClass® contactless smart card technology off ered multi-application capabilities. Since the current system used proximity cards limited to reading a building ID# number and the proposed changes required the use of an existing payroll ID#, all old cards were upgraded to a contactless card. The contactless card allowed each employee's existing payroll ID number to be written securely to his or her ID badge so that the backend database remained intact. The payroll ID# identifi es the employee to the payroll system and ensures that employees are paid properly, based on current employee records.