Oct. 19, 2009—Radio frequency identification has a variety of uses in hospital settings, from asset tracking to patient monitoring. RFID in Health Care 2009—Boston, RFID Journal's third conference and exhibition for health-care professionals, was held on Sept. 17 at The Westin Waltham-Boston, in Waltham, Mass. More than 100 attendees gathered at the conference to learn how they can benefit from using the technology, and speaker presentations are now available (see the final page for downloading instructions).

This conference 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 reduce medical errors and collect information automatically. Such benefits include increasing asset utilization with real-time tracking, reducing errors by tracking medical devices, improving patient monitoring and safety, enhancing supply chain efficiencies and boosting revenue with automated billing.



During this one-day event, health-care providers, hospitals 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.

Main Conference Sessions
Mark Roberti, RFID Journal's founder and editor, opened the conference with a presentation regarding the basics of RFID technology for health-care professionals. This session was designed to help attendees understand the various types of RFID technologies, as well as applications for each, and covered active, battery-assisted and passive technologies, both high-frequency (HF) and ultrahigh-frequency (UHF). Roberti explained how each can be deployed to track various assets, and also offered a brief overview of EPCglobal's standards, including their relevance to the health-care industry.