Dec 19, 2021Radio frequency identification (RFID) permits data to be stored wirelessly and retrieved automatically. That makes it a considerable improvement over traditional object recognition, tracking and stocking, as well as the barcode system. While barcodes must be read in line of sight, RFID does not require it. RFID is projected to improve supply chain efficiency, increase asset visibility, automate stock replenishment, improve inventory control, and reduce theft and counterfeiting.
RFID is widely used for track-and-trace applications, and to avoid any threats and losses (see Museum Explores the Morals, Threats and Benefits of Track-and-Trace). For years, the technology has been utilized by the U.S. Defense Department, while Target, Gillette and Wal-Mart were all aggressive in their use and promotion of RFID. Their goals included lowering labor costs for scanning items, minimizing out-of-stocks, lowering losses and reducing theft.
The use of RFID in healthcare is expected to save money and improve patient safety in that industry. A small but rising number of hospitals are testing the technology, though the majority, if not all, of the projects we've seen are on a limited scale. Keeping track of and regulating equipment was a common starting point for many of them.
The Development of RFID Apps in Healthcare
With the rising complexity of healthcare procedures, hospital administration requires the capacity to efficiently visualize, monitor and optimize patient care and resource-allocation procedures. Patients need prompt assistance from healthcare experts. The largest difficulty facing healthcare professionals is that overworked practitioners are spending too much time doing non-patient-care tasks.
According to industrial case studies, healthcare nurses spend anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of their time searching for portable medical equipment. So the development of RFID apps in healthcare primarily targets the enhancement of overall care delivery efficiency. With a virtual map of a hospital environment, frontline care personnel can better interact with one another, assign rooms and services more rapidly, and reduce patient wait times.
1. Liverpool Hospital RFID Case Study
Prior to the adoption of RFID at Australia's Liverpool Hospital, blood samples were manually recorded using a paper-based sign-out registration completed by nurses and healthcare staff members when they removed and deposited blood from the OR refrigerator. This process was frequently not done correctly, or at all, with 60 percent of blood transferred from operating room blood coolers in September 2011 not signed out. This generated safety worries about reusing products which had been restored to refrigerators. The use of paper records also raises the possibility of blood bags being given to the wrong patients.
By providing more precise, real-time data to hospital and transfusion service employees, RFID can help to mitigate these hazards. After examining a number of options, Liverpool Hospital opted to deploy low-frequency RFID blood tagging (see RFID Tracks Blood at Australia's Liverpool Hospital). A business case was written in November 2011 for an RFID smart blood freezer to be installed in the operating room. The hospital fund was under duress, so a cost-sharing arrangement was negotiated in which the hospital paid a one-time fee for the freezer, while the pathology division paid for RFID tags on a continuous basis.
In July 2012, the economic case was authorized on the provision that the fridge met the Australian AS3864 standard, that the technology was user-friendly, and that the vendor would reimburse the price of both the freezer and the software if the device did not operate. The vendor's software was based on an earlier commercial stock-management platform that needed to be tweaked to track blood. The project's refrigerator was imported from France and upgraded with software to assure AS3864 compliance. The fridge arrived at the hospital in June 2013 and was operational by December.
2. A Six Sigma DMAIC and Simulation Case Study
This study examined the impact of implementing RFID technology on increasing the performance and efficiency of ambulatory surgery processes, mainly using the define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) method and various analysis techniques, such as value-stream mapping, workflow diagrams and discrete event simulation.
Findings: The use of RFID technology for outpatient procedure processes in a hospital resulted in high predicted yearly cost and time savings in carrying out clients' surgical procedures. This is due to the reduction of non-value-added activities, such as locating supplies and equipment, as well as the return loop generated by preventive post-operative infections.
To address these two difficulties, a number of RFID-enabled poka-yokes (mechanisms in a process that allow equipment operators to avoid mistakes) have been identified. Practical implications: Several poka-yokes built with RFID technology have been recognized for increasing the safety and quality of care and the operation's cost-effectiveness to ensure the ambulatory surgery process's success.
3. The Case: The Location-based Medicare Service (LBMS) Project
Taipei Medical University Hospital (TMUH) has been a leader in embracing technology to improve its medical services. One of the hospital's five vice-superintendents is solely responsible for information technology. The MIS department's workers are mostly experienced and skilled; their main objective is to build innovative information retrieval applications to support medical practice and research.
The hospital has an HL7 and Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM)-compliant integrated healthcare information system. A radiology information system (RIS), a lab information system (LIS) and a hospital information system (HIS) make up this solution. The majority of patient medical records have been digitized.
The Project for a Location-based Medicare Service
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced a global alert on March 12, 2003, regarding severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). SARS is highly infectious, and it immediately puts hospitals' infection-control methods to the test. To prevent the spread of in-hospital infectious illnesses, some Taiwanese hospitals shuttered for weeks. As it turns out, the SARS-affected patients' contact history is crucial for identifying and tracing additional potentially sick people.
It takes time and effort to compile a patient's history of interactions with others, but RFID's powerful tracking capabilities and automatic identification appeared to have a lot of promise in this regard. In May 2003, two Singaporeans hospitals, National University Hospital and Alexandra Hospital, became the first to use an RFID system in their Accident and Emergency departments. Visitors, patients and employees are all tracked by the department. TMUH began to investigate a similar concept after being inspired by the two Singaporean hospitals' approaches (see Singapore Fights SARS with RFID).
4. A Case Study on the Design and Development of an RFID-based HIS
RFID wristbands, tags, readers and antennas, as well as PDA handheld devices and software, make up an RFID-enabled HIS and Wi-Fi network platform. Patient data, such as name, allergies, blood type and other important details for identification, is stored on the wristband and can be linked to treatment and payments. The specifications are 14443a agreement, an NXP chip and 1KB storage. The RFID reader, which includes a receiver, a transmitter and a CPU, sends and receives radio frequency (RF) signals to and from the tag through antennas.
A PDA is a handheld device developed for hospital personnel that has an RFID reader built in to check the patient's RFID wristband. This allows medical staff to access vital information quickly and monitor a patient's health record in real time. Medical personnel can confirm drug prescriptions, issue prescriptions and review information at any given time and from any place. In addition, a PDA can be used as a telephone in the event of an emergency. The PDA employed in this case study had handwriting capability, which was in accordance with the sealing norm, and a Microsoft Windows CE 5.0 (CE.NET) embedded OS, which was in accordance with IEEE802.11b (WLAN).
The whereabouts of medical equipment, as well as tagged assets and patients, are visible to the management team and medical staff, thanks to the Wi-Fi network. As a result, the staff can use the PDA to obtain patients' health records and locate them quickly in the event of an emergency. Data is provided through the proposed healthcare information system, changing back and forth between the information service and the system application for the front end. The RFID system's architecture enabling HIS was also built to work with the system already in place.
Presently, the current HIS has served as a paperless workflow, and environmental issues have been addressed with the deployment of HIS to the administration of patient information, but several significant safety issues still need to be solved. Although it has made a significant contribution, transfusion accuracy still has to be improved. As a result of the existing transfusion process, which includes human verification, there is a high risk of accidents involving the incorrect transfusion of fluid due to human error.
During an emergency, this scenario is more likely to occur. As a result, all transfusions must be completed correctly, with the correct fluid transfused to the correct recipient. Perhaps the most compelling reason for using RFID is to address the difficulty of patient data accuracy, while also increasing efficiency and efficacy.
Rahul Varshneya is the co-founder and president of Arkenea, a custom healthcare software development company. Rahul has been featured as a technology thought leader at Bloomberg TV, Forbes, HuffPost and other news outlets.
