Abstract
Radio frequency identification (RFID) has become a key technology in the logistics and management industry, thanks to distinctive features such as the low cost of RFID tags, and the easiness of the RFID tags’ deployment and integration within the items to be tracked. In consequence, RFID plays a fundamental role in the so-called digital factory or 4.0 Industry, aiming to increase the level of automatization of industrial processes. In addition, RFID has also been found to be of great help in improving the tracking of patients, medicines, and medical assets in hospitals, where the digitalization of these operations improves their efficiency and safety. This contribution reviews the state-of-the-art of RFID for e-Health applications, describing the contributions to improve medical services and discussing the limitations. In particular, it has been found that a lot of effort has been put into software development, but in most of the cases a detailed study of the physical layer (that is, the characterization of the RFID signals within the area where the system is deployed) is not properly conducted. This contribution describes a basic RFID system for tracking and managing assets in hospitals, aiming to provide additional details about implementation aspects that must be considered to ensure proper functionality of the system. Although the scope of the RFID system described in this contribution is restricted to a small area of the hospital, the architecture is fully scalable to cover the needs of the different medical services in the hospital. Ultra high-frequency (UHF) RFID technology is selected over the most extended near-field communication (NFC) and high-frequency (HF) RFID technology to minimize hardware infrastructure. In particular, UHF RFID also makes the coverage/reading area conformation easier by using different kinds of antennas. Information is stored in a database, which is accessed from end-user mobile devices (tablets, smartphones) where the position and status of the assets to be tracked are displayed.
Highlights
The rapid development of information communication and technology (ICT) has made possible the automatization of human-assisted tasks in a wide range of applications, such as asset tracking for logistics or people monitoring for security and safety applications
This contribution has revised the impact of Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems for reducing the risk of medical errors in hospitals, especially in the field of drug administration
The added value comes from the hardware point-of-view, discussing advantages and limitations of different kinds of RFID technology, and analyzing the coverage area and the effects of multipath in the case of Ultra high-frequency (UHF) RFID systems
Summary
The rapid development of information communication and technology (ICT) has made possible the automatization of human-assisted tasks in a wide range of applications, such as asset tracking for logistics (mainly within the context of 4.0 Industry) or people monitoring for security and safety applications. A hybrid infrared/RFID real-time location system (RTLS) is described in [20], providing detection ranges up to 2 m even in non line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions This system was initially conceived for monitoring and tracking medical items (e.g., to detect those requiring maintenance), and later extended to track nurses when they respond to emergency calls or visit patients. The main complaints come from the need of adoption of new medical protocols (training of doctors and nurses), especially if they require additional tasks (e.g., approaching the items tagged to the NFC or RFID reader). This problem could be mitigated if UHF RFID systems, with longer reading range, were used. Another issue, missed in the deployment and evaluation of the RFID systems cited in the literature review, is a proper characterization of the physical layer, such as the coverage of the RFID antennas or the selection of the RFID antennas’ placement, to fulfill coverage and detectability requirements
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