BACKGROUND

The present disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for identifying healthcare assets, and more particularly to systems and methods for automatically generating a bill of materials for a healthcare asset and/or monitoring a healthcare asset throughout its life span.

Healthcare assets, such as computer tomography (CT) imagers, magnetic resonance (MR) imagers, positron emission tomography (PET) imagers, ultrasounds imagers, C-ARM or other x-ray imagers etc., are widely used for diagnoses, treatment, and monitoring of patients. Healthcare facilities, such as hospitals and clinics, are heavily dependent on the apparition, efficiency, and performance of these assets. Failure of these healthcare assets cannot be afforded, and thus many healthcare assets are subjected to monitoring and preventative maintenance which involves periodic maintenance and repair or replacement of key elements of such assets. These assets are complicated systems with many parts that may be repaired or replaced throughout the life of the asset.

SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in limiting the scope of the claimed subject matter.

In one embodiment, a system for identifying healthcare assets includes a set of tags configured to communicate with one another, the set of tags including a root tag configured to transmit an asset identifier identifying the healthcare asset and a plurality of component tags each configured to transmit a component identifier identifying a component of the healthcare asset. A receiver system is configured to receive the asset identifier and the plurality of component identifiers from the set of tags and to automatically generate a bill of materials (BOM) for the healthcare asset based on the asset identifier and the plurality of component identifiers.

One embodiment of the method of identifying a healthcare asset includes providing a set of tags configured to communicate with one another and configuring the set of tags into a hierarchical structure based on a component structure of the healthcare asset. The tags are then operated to communicate an asset identifier identifying the healthcare asset and a plurality of component identifiers identifying components of the healthcare asset. The asset identifier and the plurality of component identifiers are received at a receiver system, which then generates a BOM for the healthcare asset based on the asset identifier and the plurality of component identifiers.

Various other features, objects, and advantages of the invention will be made apparent from the following description taken together with the drawings.

