Quality Assessment of Real-Time Location, Time and Temperature Data Generated by Active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology in Hospital Settings

Mw Jaspers

doi:10.26717/bjstr.2019.20.003507

Abstract

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is an emerging technology within hospital settings that can improve patient safety

Highlights

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is an emerging technology within hospital settings that can improve patient safety, operational, logistic processes and clinical procedures
The aim of this study is to report on the results concerning the assessment of the accuracy and completeness of location, time and temperature data generated by an active RFID system used for the tracking and tracing of Red Blood Cells (RBCs) inside an academic hospital
After the data validation study described in this paper, we evaluated whether the management of blood transfusion chain concerning RBCs complied to European and Dutch guidelines by tracking and tracing these RBCs with our RFID system inside our hospital

Summary

Introduction

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is an emerging technology within hospital settings that can improve patient safety, operational, logistic processes and clinical procedures. RFID systems contain 2 basic components: tags and readers. An active tag contains a battery and is able to collect and transfer data, such as temperature, humidity, location and its identity, without necessarily being activated by the electromagnetic field generated by a reader. A passive tag does not contain a battery and is only able to transmit data while being activated by the electromagnetic field generated by the reader [8]. Multiple barcodes on products, including those codes containing irrelevant information from previous steps in the process, might generate incorrect information when the wrong barcode is being scanned further in the process [10]. RFID tags can hold more and more up-to-date information and can generate more accurate data in relation to information systems depending on hand-based data entry [10]

Methods

Results

Conclusion