RFID in Hospital

The article taken from The Star, discussed the application of RFID in hospital. Some of the facts discussed:

1. RFID tag stores information
2. Doctors and nurses carrying RFID tag readers, perhaps attached to Portable PCs or personal digital assistants (PDAs), could retrieve up-to-date information from the patient’s wristband if the hospital information system is down.
3. Convenient for doctors who could refer to or update patient records from the bedside, as they make clinical observations, prescribe medication or order medical procedures.
4. Implementing RFID in a hospital information system could help cut down on errors as well as reduce the clerical workload for nurses, freeing them to get on with actual nursing.
5. RFID tags are more physically robust than barcode tags, are reusable.

However, the limitations faced are:
1. Not all Malaysian private hospital has converted from its barcode-based information system to an RFID-based one.
2. Cost is an issue, with RFID tagging systems costing over twice as much as barcode-based ones. RFID tags cost from 15 cents (54 sen) to over US$30 (RM100) each – depending on data capacity and whether the tag is “active” (carries a radio transmitter), among other things – as compare to barcode tag only costs as much as the paper it is printed on.
3. Issuing doctors and nurses with additional IT equipment ranging from Tablet PCs to PDAs.
adding to the implementation costs to the hospital,
4. Raise potential security and privacy risks for confidential patient data if the devices are lost or stolen.

Sooner or later, RFID will be a common application in hospitals, and may be in schools, Theme Parks, Car parks, you name it.