Medical errors are the third-highest cause of death in the United States, with a substantial impact on public health. Lack of information and access, patient tracking, long hospital waits, inventory management, pharmaceutical errors, and parking management are all key industry challenges. By automatically identifying and tracking RFID tags attached to items, RFID offers a variety of solutions to these issues.
This technology has had a global impact on a variety of industries. Consequently, RFID-based solutions for healthcare are also picking up. The healthcare business is gradually adopting new technology in order to improve the quality of care provided to patients. RFID technology in healthcare has the ability to track medical assets and interact with nearly every medical gadget, pharmaceutical material, IT equipment, or individual patient deployed in hospitals throughout the world.
More and more healthcare solution providers in India have started relying on RFID tech nowadays. But, we know that every new technology comes with its own pros and cons and a set of new opportunities. The same is with RFID technology. In this blog, we will discuss all of these things in depth to understand if the RFID technology is really worth it or not.
The benefits of RFID technology are as stated below.
- An active RFID communicates with tags affixed to specific products on a continuous basis. This allows for continuous real-time position tracking and is more accurate than passive RFID.
- RFID technology in healthcare businesses allows you to track and manage your employees in real-time or near-real-time in a variety of patient care settings. When tracking productivity in a busy hospital, this information is quite important.
- To meet MHRA regulations, the RFID system can automatically monitor temperature and humidity in critical settings such as vaccine stockpiles. Manual checks are no longer required, which saves time, money, and eliminates errors. Completed temperature recordings are kept or made available for audit or reference purposes in accordance with regulatory compliance.
- Data from RFID tags can be saved, managed, and transferred via the internet. An active, battery-powered RFID, such as ultrasound or infrared, has an infrastructure that uses WiFi to send data to healthcare systems such as EMRs and asset management applications.
- RFID tags can be used to keep a real time check of an infant’s location such that it triggers an alarm or sends a message when an infant is moved beyond a specified security limit.
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RFID Based Solutions for Healthcare come with a set of challenges as well. They are stated below.
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Training
RFID systems are complicated. Any healthcare institution that wants to fully adopt and regulate the system will need skilled employees to maintain the equipment and software. Technical training and education is one of the most difficult obstacles for RFID to overcome because it takes time and money.
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Infrastructure
It is costly to do a technical makeover with RFID tags and their associated systems. They frequently necessitate the use of supporting technologies such as cellular networks and GPS (e.g., for RFID readers with GPS). Furthermore, tags, scanners, software, network upkeep, and a variety of other assets can be costly to any budget.
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Data Integrity
The effective handling of data is critical with hundreds, if not thousands, of connected RFID devices and systems. Huge amounts of data must be collected and analysed, from inventories to management systems, or from a patient’s bed to a doctor’s office. This will ensure that the information gathered is correct and not exploited. Poor data quality outcomes could lead to dwindling trust in the technology, posing another issue for RFID technology in healthcare.
To conclude, the RFID-based solution for healthcare opens up a slew of opportunities for improving patient safety. Patient identification, tracking, monitoring, and enhancing medicine compliance can be done using RFID. Medical and human errors in hospitals and other healthcare organisations can be reduced by using RFID technology for these objectives.
