1. RFID IN HEALTH CARE
HEMAPRIYADHARSHINI SAMPATH KUAMR

2. INTRODUCTION
• Healthcare is considered one of the fastest growing business
and largest service industries in the world.
• To cope with this expansion, the healthcare industry must
change its traditional operations and deploy a new information
system to manage unpredictable processes and supply accurate
responses in time.

3. ISSUES IN HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
According to Larson (2013), the major issues in healthcare industry are
• Balancing care, quality and efficiency
• Improving access to patient care
• Inventory management
• Drug administration
• Medical errors
• Lack of efficient business process management (Ma, 2012)
• Lack of visibility in real-time location (Ma, 2012)

4. HOW RFID WORKS

6. RFID BENEFITS IN HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
• Inventory control
• Equipment tracking
• Out-of-bed detection
• Ensuring that patients receive the correct medications and medical devices
• Preventing the distribution of counterfeit drugs and medical devices
• Monitoring patients
• Providing data for electronic medical records systems and
• Reducing medical errors

7. RFID CONSTRAINTS IN HEALTHCARE
INDUSTRY
• High implementation cost – ROI is high
• Electro Magnetic Interference with medical devices such as pace
maker – RFID standards available
• Difficulty in reading tags amidst of liquids and metals
• RFID reader will read all tags within the range
• Lack of organization support

8. RFID HEALTHCARE SOLUTION PROVIDERS
RFID Solution Provider Key Capability Offerings
Alvin RFID and Wireless Software Platform
for Healthcare
New generation patient / object / asset
identification and tracking solution
Cisco Location-Aware Healthcare Solution
Ekahau WiFi, uses asset and personnel tags, open
API to connect to
existing infrastructure, statistical signal
strength monitoring
GE Healthcare WiFi/UWB/infrared hybrid RFID system

9. NEED FOR RFID STANDARDS
• To ensure RFID interoperability, regardless of vendor or user
(Impinj, n.d)
• To solve the trade-off between location privacy and scalability
in healthcare environments (Picazo-Sanchez, P., Bagheri, N., &
Peris-Lopez, P., 2013)
• To improve patient safety and data privacy (EPCglobal, 2005)

10. RFID STANDARDS IN HEALTHCARE
• ISO/IEC 18000 standards - automatic identification and item
management (Violino, 2005, p. 2)
• 18000–1: Generic parameters for air interfaces for globally accepted
frequencies
• 18000–2: Air interface for 130 KHz
• 18000–3: Air interface for 13.56 MHz
• 18000–4: Air interface for 2.45 GHz
• 18000–5: Air interface for 5.8 GHz
• 18000–6: Air interface for 860 MHz to 930 MHz

11. RFID STANDARDS IN HEALTHCARE
• Electronic Product Code standards (EPC) - in tracking and locating
healthcare products (Turner, 2003; Violino, 2005). Ex: mass serialization,
medication scheduling, and enhanced inventory management
• EPCglobal has developed Auto-ID center that creates its own ultra-high
frequency (UHF) air interface protocol for tracking merchandises through
global supply chain (Turner, 2003; Violino, 2005).
• Since it created Chaos in RFID industry, it developed second-generation
protocol (Gen 2) to create a single, global standard that resembles ISO
standards (Roberti, 2004).
• This enabled RFID vendors to work on both ISO UHF and Gen 2 protocols
(Violino, 2005)

12. RFID STANDARDS IN HEALTHCARE
• The HIBC is an alphanumeric identification system specifies details
such as item identification, patient information and medical device
information (Connor, 2009; Health Industry Business
Communications Council, 2007).
• ANSI/HIBC 4.0 - guidelines for deploying RFID passive tags in
hospitals (Connor, 2009)
• ANSI/HIBC 4.0 recommends that 13.56 MHz high frequency (HF) RFID
tags can be implemented in hospitals for product level tagging in
order to reduce significant intrusions with medical equipment’s (RFID
update, 2009).

13. SECURITY CONCERNS
• No authentication - No friend/foe distinction
• No encryption - Eavesdropping possible
• Illicit usage - Risk to patient location privacy and hospital security
• RFID Skimming - digital theft, read and duplicate data from RFID
based smart cards
Solution: HIPPA is an act that establishes the privacy, security and
electronic transaction
standards with regard to patient health information for all
covered entities (HIPAA,
1996; Volonino & Robinson, 2003).

14. BEST PRACTICES - PLANNING
• Plan RFID solutions based on hospital requirements
• Be sure on what data needs to be stored. Ex: Patient record,
drug information
• Make sure data interpretation and analytics provide information
people can act on
• Consider how the change will be affected by physical elements
• Always be inquisitive about 5Ws – Who, What, When, Where,
Why

15. BEST PRACTICES - PURCHASING
• Do you need non-line-of-site reading?
• What are the required read ranges?
• Do you need serialization for each item?
• Will the item be traveling or fixed when read? How fast will it be
moving?
• Does the item contain metal in its construction?
• Will your application use fixed or mobile readers?

16. BEST PRACTICES - INSTALLING
• Solid base to avoid accidental bumping
• Antenna placement and positioning ability
• Fabrication & Manufacturing – professional grade
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUH3_gLMV1M

17. BEST PRACTICE - SYSTEM MAINTENANCE
• Replace active RFID tags – every 2-3 years
• Backup patient data
• Keep track of equipment repair or service
• Employ RFID based maintenance management system

18. HUMAN AND PROCESS CHANGES
• Operational – Reduces patient wait and staff overload
• Clinical – Improves patients clinical and nursing quality of
care
• Economical – Total hospital profit, ROI

19. CHANGES IN ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES
• Mandatory wear of RFID ID’s
• Mandatory drug administration policies
• Authorized and un-authorized users of RFID technology
• Track location limitations

20. TRAINING REQUIREMENTS
Different levels of training of hospital personnel will be required based
on the degree of interaction with the RFID system
• Staff – ID card
• Nurses – How to handle RFID readers
• Radiology – RFID & EMI exposure level
• Doctors – Infection control
• Hospital – Track patient flow, doctors, nurses efficiency

21. IMPLEMENTATION IMPACT
Case studies:
• Improved injection safety - Using a handheld reader with RFID tags in patient
wristbands, drugs are matched with prescription information in electronic
medical records in Sanraku Hospital, Tokyo
• Infection control - RFID tags deployed to patients and staff is to trace people
who come into contact with patients with a contagious potentially dangerous
infection such as TB using RFID scanners - Texas Health Harris Methodist
Hospital, US
Overall,
• Improved patient care
• Improved patient safety and security
• Improved organizational performance

22. SUMMARY
• RFID in healthcare
• Advantages & Disadvantages
• RFID healthcare solution providers
• RFID standards
• Security concerns
• Best practices – Planning, purchasing, installing, system maintenance
• Human & process changes
• Changes in organizational policies
• Training requirements
• Implementation impact

23. REFERENCES
http://www.amnhealthcare.com/latest-healthcare-news/five-top-ethical-issues-
healthcare/
http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/551
https://www.rfidjournal.com/whitepapers/download?159
http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/healthcare/CLA_HealthcareSolution.pdf
http://dr-health-informatics.weebly.com/advantages-and-disadvantages.html
http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?1004
http://www.barcodesinc.com/info/buying-guides/rfid.htm
http://ie.technion.ac.il/labs/serveng/files/BPM09_based_business_process_transfor
mation.pdf
http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?12428/2