Abstract
Active and passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology are available and licensed for the use in hospitals, and can be used to establish highly reliable pervasive environments within healthcare facilities. They should not be understood as competing technologies and complement each other when intelligently integrated in compact frameworks. This paper describes the state-of-the-art of RFID technology and the current use in the healthcare industry, and points out recent developments and future options.
Highlights
When the original work on ubiquitous, or pervasive, computing was conducted back in the late 1980s, at the Xerox Paolo Alto Research Centre in California, researchers had the idea of integrating computing processes seamlessly into real-world applications (Weiser et al, 1999)
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology dates back to the second world war where it was used as a tool for airforce pilots to distinguish enemy planes from friendly planes
RFID is the intelligent replacement, and is a good solution for overcoming patient identification problems (Murphy and Kay, 2004) in healthcare environment. Another application area is in surgery, where relatively simple setups have been used to write and read relatively small amount of information to/from passive RFID tags, in order to eradicate medical errors and to prevent litigation (Birmingham Heartlands, 2005; Macario et al, 2006)
Summary
When the original work on ubiquitous, or pervasive, computing was conducted back in the late 1980s, at the Xerox Paolo Alto Research Centre in California, researchers had the idea of integrating computing processes seamlessly into real-world applications (Weiser et al, 1999). For many reasons, the spread of the technology in healthcare has taken longer than expected (Al Nahas and Deogun, 2007; Leonidas, 2007; Varshney, 2007) The reasons for this include: health and safety issues; budget constraints; patient confidentiality; litigation issues; technical problems; and specific issues linked with the structure of the decision-making processes in the healthcare industry. The feasibility of pervasive environments based on passive RFID in healthcare is proven, the technology is still waiting to be implemented on a large-scale scale Reasons for this might be: fears of need for additional investment to upgrade existing hospital/healthcare IT concerns about the staff training required concerns that returns from the investment might not take place within a financial year lack of communication between industrial partners complex structure of decision-making processes in large institutionalised healthcare providers, such as government agencies, health maintenance organisations (HMOs), and so on lack of standards for application of RFID in healthcare. A similar product is available from Microsoft which is in the process of being piloted by Kaiser Permanente the largest US health maintenance organisation.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
