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| Abstract: This article explains the radio frequency identification (RFID) vantages in the process of managing and serving to the field of Healthcare. It projects the likelihood of adopting RFID within organizations in the healthcare industry. This study also inquires the motivation behind applying RFID technology and the driving forces for the adoption of RFID using the theory of technology-push and need-pull. |
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| CareEMR is heading towards the featuring of phenomenal science of RFID in the field of healthcare. |
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| What is RFID? |
| The abbreviation RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. Radio Frequency Identification is a technology that integrates the use of electromagnetic or electrostatic conjugating in the radio frequency component part of the electromagnetic spectrum to uniquely identify an object, animal, or person. |
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| The signals from the RFID device attached to the RFID tag are received by the RFID reader by means of feeler. The RFID reader transforms the radio signals into digital form, for an instance a tag identification number represents the digital form. The RFID tag is equipped with a feeler which can be used to add new information to the RFID chip or to modify or remove existing information. |
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| RFID in HealthCare |
| RFID proves to have the potential to improve the management and services in Hospitals by monitoring patients, tracking medical devices, identifying lab specimens, linking patient with the key drugs and potentially hazardous materials. |
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| In electronic health, RFID integrated with the network or sensors can monitor the temperature of the blood products. Also it can send the physiological status of the patient; build the environment for surveillance of critical patients like the mentally challenged ones; enable continuous monitoring and patient identification; and identify patients' locations in case of emergency. |
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| As a way to ensure patient safety and also to improve inventory management capabilities, companies are presently using RFID in the Health care industry. For example, the United States Navy replaced their manual patient location system which was basically used to locate patients and labor-intensive units which is a process that requires a large amount of labor to produce its goods or services, in Pensacola Fleet Hospital in Iraq with an RFID Technology product. Hospital personnel are using RFID-enabled wrist bands to identify, locate, and obtain status updates on their patients. According to Hospital Corpsman Chief Petty Officer Michael Stiney, U.S. Navy, "The ability to keep important information with each patient, and to track his or her whereabouts automatically have helped medical professionals at this facility better manage patient care." (Source: James Reiner of Georgia-based principal for UPS Supply Chain) |
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| RFID associates with another application with the tags on prescription bottles for the blind and visually-impaired individuals. Patients can use the devices placed on the prescription containers to read the prescription and learn the dosage amounts verbally through the use of speech conversion technology. |
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| RFID helps to get rid of manual data entry to play safe in Health care and comply with strict laws. A reliable and cost effective solution for medication tracking can be executed through the use of RFID which records the patient usage, or when the tablet is expelled from the packaging and also in enabling accurate capture of clinical data. |
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| Summary |
| Operational efficiency of a company can be improved by using RFID's strong functionality. This will in turn reduce the labor and enhances product visibility, thus reduces overall inventory levels. |
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| Health care organizations already have strong RFID applications which include medical device tracking to encourage patient safety and increase operational efficiency. In addition, some health care organizations that have not yet adopted bar code technology can comply with RFID usage to compete in maintaining better asset visibility while reducing inventory levels. |
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| Author: Ashwin Mallikarjun Hiremath |
| Designation: Software Engineer |
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| Reference List |
| http://www.ehealthonline.org |
| http://www.hibcc.org |
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