Feb. 23, 2009—Radio frequency identification can be utilized in many ways in hospital settings, from patient monitoring to asset tracking. RFID in Health Care 2009, RFID Journal's second annual conference and exhibition for health-care professionals, was held on Jan. 22 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas. Approximately 100 attendees gathered at the conference to learn how they can benefit from using the technology. Speaker presentations are now available on the event's Web site; see the final page for downloading instructions.

This conference, colocated with World Congress' Healthcare Supply Chain Management Summit, was designed to educate attendees regarding how hospitals across North America are achieving benefits from using RFID technologies to monitor patients and assets, as well as to automatically collect information and reduce medical errors. Such benefits include improving patient monitoring and safety, increasing asset utilization with real-time tracking, boosting revenue with automated billing, reducing errors by tracking medical devices and enhancing supply chain efficiencies.



During this one-day event, hospitals, health-care providers and other end users revealed how they have employed RFID and Electronic Product Code (EPC) technologies to reduce costs, streamline operational efficiencies and improve patient care. What's more, industry leaders offered insights into how to move from one-off applications to an infrastructure approach to radio frequency identification.

Mark Roberti, RFID Journal's founder and editor, outlined the different types of RFID technologies currently available, as well as applications for each. These included active, battery-assisted and passive technologies, high-frequency (HF) and ultrahigh-frequency (UHF). Roberti explained how these technologies can be deployed to track various assets, and also provided an overview of EPCglobal's standards, including their relevance to the health-care industry.