Are There RFID Standards for Medical Environments?

Published: February 14, 2011

Does either the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or EPCglobal specify that a particular type of RFID technology be used within hospital settings?

—Paul

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Dear Paul,

There is no FDA requirement for the use of high-frequency (HF) or ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification—or any other type of RFID—in hospitals.

EPCglobal, which creates hardware and standards for the use of RFID, has been working with some health-care organizations to encourage the industry to create guidelines for how to employ passive RFID to track goods in the health-care supply chain. To date, however, no formal guidelines have yet been issued.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal