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Hospitalbarcoding.com is the
leading resource for finding out about RFID developments in hospitals.
Did you know? An RFID-enabled,
real-time location system (RTLS) is being
implemented at
the twenty different hospitals of the Carolinas Healthcare System.
The RTLS will be utilized for tracking about 5,000 medical devices and
equipment at the facilities. The deployment was described in the RFID
Journal.
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Click here to learn how to
start an RFID project.
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Can RFID save a dying
patient, who can’t express herself to doctors?
If you’re scratching your
head, consider this scenario: A woman with diabetes
skips her insulin, and lands in the hospital with a case
of hyperglycemia that rendered her unconscious. Without
intervention, her condition may worsen into a state
called “ketoacidosis” – a life-threatening illness. But
let’s say she’s tagged with RFID and the hospital’s
medical staff is equipped with a reader that can pick up
her medical history in one wave.
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Use of RFID in
Healthcare Applications Likely to Grow in the Next Ten Years
The largest use of radio frequency identification (RFID) in
healthcare in the next ten years is expected to be from the
labeling of drugs at the item level and the development of
infrastructure and services needed to support this throughout
the complete supply chain and hospitals. "The challenge is to
prevent counterfeiting of drugs by establishing a complete
history of each package at all times known as pedigree,"
according to the analyst of this study. "Another key application
for RFID in healthcare is the use of real-time location system (RTLS)
for staff, patients, visitors, and assets."
However, the systems and support are costlier compared to
tags that can be reused in this scenario. The largest uses of
RFID included error prevention, which is one application that
cuts across both item level drug tagging and RTLS. These
solutions use electronic handshake to prevent any wrong
procedure to occur with RFID system recording the actual event
for future references.
Multiple Applications that can Utilize RFID Boost Demand
One of the key challenges faced by RFID industry is the cost
prohibitive nature of tags and other associated hardware, and
the unproven return on investment (ROI). Taken together with the
required supply chain collaboration both upstream and down, RFID
precludes the efficacy of the overall infrastructure. There are
other perceived hurdles, which are to be met by all
stakeholders. The use of RFID technologies in hospitals is
limited till date, primarily due to the cost issues.
"Even as RFID matures, it is likely that bar coding will
continue to offer hospitals a proven, efficient, and more
cost-effective means of capturing data for a variety of
applications," explains the analyst. Some of the applications
are bedside medication administration, unit-dose labeling in the
pharmacy, specimen collection at the patient bedside, specimen
tracking and management in the laboratory, and materials
management." Frost
and Sullivan, Advances in Healthcare Applications 2007 |
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OVERVIEW OF RFID
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RFID has two main components: a tag and a reader. Most tags
have an antenna attached to a microchip containing a short
identification number.
Tags can be active or passive.
Active tags have a battery with a life of several years, a
range of tens of meters and a larger data capacity than
passive tags. Passive tags use reader emissions to power a
brief response, usually just an ID number. They have a short
range—about 10mm to 5 metres—and they can be small enough to
implant under the skin.
The advantages of RFID tags
over other methods of identification such as barcodes is
that you can write to them, read them automatically even if
you can not see them and (in theory at least) read many of
them simultaneously. |
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Preserving Patient
Confidentiality
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RFID data can be secured by encryption and by careful design
of transmission protocols. The short range of passive RFID
tags also deters snooping. Furthermore, some developing RFID
standards include password protection for tag identification
fields and allow a reader (say at a check out) to erase all
tag data.
Nevertheless, civil libertarians are concerned that patient
RFID tags could be read by snoopers and together with data
on tags on credit cards and on other goods could be used to
identify patients and track them after discharge.
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Applications in Hospitals
Patient Tracking/Patient ID
Medical
Instrument/Equipment Tracking
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OR supply tracking - MA
General Hospital
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Mobile equipment
tracking - Presbyterian Healthcare Services, NM
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Medical Equipment
Tracking - Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Medication Administration -
Jacobi Medical Center, NY
Monitoring system for
Neonatal Patients - Doctors Hospital of Dallas, TX
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Nurses had trouble locating
crucial cardiac equipment. Find out
here how they solved the problem using RFID technology.
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7/2/2007
VeriChip Corporation,
provider of RFID systems for healthcare and patient-related needs,
announced recently the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Council on
Ethical and Judicial Affairs has adopted a policy stating that
implantable radio frequency identification (RFID) devices may help to
identify patients, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of
patient care, and may be used to enable secure access to patient
clinical information. VeriChip has the only FDA-cleared RFID implantable
microchip for patient identification and health information purposes.
VeriChip anticipates that the AMA’s recommendation will enhance the
Company’s marketing efforts by accelerating the adoption by hospitals of
the VeriMed Patient Identification System and increasing the profile of
the VeriChip among the medical community.
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Bar Codes vs. RFID: A
Battle Just Beginning
click here for an article
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