Excerpt from Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare
October 2005
Full article is available at online or in .pdf format

Intelligent Location

By Mike Dempsey

As the buzz around the potential for radio frequency identification (RFID) in healthcare increases, so do the questions related to its practicality and payback. Answers vary because RFID represents an array of technologies, each with its own requirements and value for healthcare. The focus of this article is active-RFID indoor positioning systems, or IPS—the indoor corollary to GPS—and its use in perioperative care at three unaffiliated hospitals.

Active-RFID IPS has been shown to streamline patient flow, improve equipment management and staff efficiencies, and deliver a return on investment in less than a year. Where a GPS uses satellites above the earth, an active-RFID IPS uses compact receivers on a hospital’s network. Active (battery-powered) tags are affixed to each person or thing to be tracked. These tags transmit a consistent signal over a long range, which makes them effective for identifying and locating people or items that move frequently and over large distance indoors.

Passive-RFID, the more commonly recognized technology,is also important in healthcare. Small and inexpensive, passive-RFID tags have no internal power and must be brought close to an antenna to be activated. Passive-RFID systems are effective for uniquely identifying things and people in controlled settings. For example, the technology might be used to identify and manage the inventory of narcotics or other expensive medications, or to secure the portal into a restricted clinical area.

For hospitals using active-RFID IPS to optimize surgical workflow and patient throughput, the ability to automatically know and use real-time patient location throughout the complex phases of surgery enables a smarter perioperative care environment: Clinicians achieve greater efficiencies, patients realize a better overall surgical experience, and waiting loved ones are engaged with relevant surgical status information.

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