A review of challenges and barriers implementing RFID technology in the Healthcare sector

© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved. The healthcare industry is progressively involved in adopting new technologies to provide improved quality of care given to patients. The implementation of RFID technology has globally impacted several industries and this revolution has improved the aspects of service delivery in the healthcare industry as well. The RFID technology has the potential to track medical assets and interact with almost any of the medical devices, pharmaceutical materials, IT equipment, or individual patients, deployed in hospitals all over the world. The motivation behind this paper is to investigate the advantages and obstacles to implement RFID technology in the healthcare sector highlighted in the literature. Further, we highlight the most possible methods or technologies to be adapted to overcome the limitations of implementation

Management of RFID Systems in Hospital Transfusion Services

Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) technology is used by hospital supply chains to track various medical products and monitor inventories. To improve overall operations, hospitals have implemented RFID as part of their supply chain processes. Hospitals have also have begun incorporating RFID technology as part of their transfusion services processes. The purpose of this review was to analyze how healthcare organization supply chains can benefit from the utilization of RFID systems in transfusion services departments. The methodology for this study was a literature review following the steps of a systematic review with a total of 51 sources referenced. RFID technology is being used to manage and track blood products from the initial donor phlebotomy to final disposition or product transfusion. Through RFID, transfusion departments and hospital supply chains have been able to manage blood samples and components to facilitate identification and transfusion of blood products to the correct patient. RFID-enabled transfusion practices have successfully increased provider productivity and product quality through work-reduction times and error reduction. A pilot study in one Iowa hospital system yielded a 3%-10% reduction in misidentification of patients and/or blood products during transfusion. A cost-benefit assessment reported showed a 5-year ROI of 2%, with an approximate pay-back period of four years. Cost of RFID tags can be 10-15 times more expensive than barcode systems. There are also risks of this technology involving privacy and the security of patient information. Findings of this research study suggest that RFID has provided improvements in quality of care and efficiency, while initial costs, security and privacy appeared as principal barriers of adoption

Benefits and Barriers of Implementation and Utilization of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Systems in Transfusion Medicine

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology is used by hospital supply chains to track medical products and monitor inventories. Hospitals have also begun incorporating RFID technology as part of their transfusion processes. The purpose of this review was to analyze how healthcare organization supply chains can benefit from the utilization of RFID systems in transfusion service departments. The methodology for this study was a literature review following the steps of a systematic review with a total of 52 sources referenced. RFID technology is used to manage and track blood products from the initial donor phlebotomy to final disposition or product transfusion. RFID-enabled transfusion practices have successfully increased provider productivity and product quality through work-time reduction and error reduction. Findings of this research study suggest that RFID has provided improvements in quality of care and efficiency, while initial costs, security, and privacy appear to be the principal barriers to adoption

Hospital real-time location system (A practical approach in healthcare): A narrative review article

The Hospital Real-time Location Systems (HRTLS), deal with monitoring the patients, medical staff and valuable medical equipment in emergency situations. Therefore, the study aimed to propose Hospital Real-Time Location Systems based on the novel technologies in Iran. Methods: In this narrative-review, the articles and official reports on HRTLS, were gathered and analyzed from related textbooks and indexing sites with the defined keywords in English or Persian. The search of databases such as IDTechEx, IEEE, PubMed Central, Science Direct, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Scopus, Web of Science, Elsevier journals, WHO publications and Google Scholar was performed to reconfirm the efficiency of HRTLS from 2006 to 2017. Results: Various technologies have been used in the current systems, which have led to the reduced error rate, costs and increased speed of providing the healthcare services. Applications of these systems include tracking of patient�s, medical staff and valuable medical assets. Besides, achieving the patient & staff satisfaction is among other basic applications of these Systems. The accurate data exchange and processes control are considered as positive aspects of this technology. Conclusion: HRTLS has great importance in healthcare systems and its efficiency in medical centers is reliable; hence, it seems necessary to determine the organization�s requirements, apply novel technologies such as cloud computing and Internet of things, and integrate them to get access to maximum advantages in Iranian healthcare centers. © 2019, Iranian Journal of Public Health. All rights reserved

Hospital real-time location system (A practical approach in healthcare): A narrative review article

The Hospital Real-time Location Systems (HRTLS), deal with monitoring the patients, medical staff and valuable medical equipment in emergency situations. Therefore, the study aimed to propose Hospital Real-Time Location Systems based on the novel technologies in Iran. Methods: In this narrative-review, the articles and official reports on HRTLS, were gathered and analyzed from related textbooks and indexing sites with the defined keywords in English or Persian. The search of databases such as IDTechEx, IEEE, PubMed Central, Science Direct, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Scopus, Web of Science, Elsevier journals, WHO publications and Google Scholar was performed to reconfirm the efficiency of HRTLS from 2006 to 2017. Results: Various technologies have been used in the current systems, which have led to the reduced error rate, costs and increased speed of providing the healthcare services. Applications of these systems include tracking of patient�s, medical staff and valuable medical assets. Besides, achieving the patient & staff satisfaction is among other basic applications of these Systems. The accurate data exchange and processes control are considered as positive aspects of this technology. Conclusion: HRTLS has great importance in healthcare systems and its efficiency in medical centers is reliable; hence, it seems necessary to determine the organization�s requirements, apply novel technologies such as cloud computing and Internet of things, and integrate them to get access to maximum advantages in Iranian healthcare centers. © 2019, Iranian Journal of Public Health. All rights reserved

The Value of Integrated Information Systems for U.S. General Hospitals

Each year, huge investments into healthcare information systems (HIS) are being made all over the world. Despite the enormous cost for the hospitals, the overall benefits and costs of the healthcare information systems have not been deeply assessed. In recent years, much previous research has investigated the link between the implementation of Information Systems and the performance of organizations. Although the value of Healthcare Information System or Healthcare Information Technology (HIS/HIT) has been found in many studies, some questions remain unclear. Do HIS/HIT systems influence different hospitals the same way? How to understand and explain the mechanism that HIS/HIT improves the performance of hospitals? To address these questions, our research will: 1) Identify the bottlenecks of the current healthcare system which affects the operation efficiency (mismatch between demand and service provided); 2) Adopt the institutional theory to explain the process of implementing HIS/HIT and the possible outcomes; 3) Conduct an empirical study, to expose issues of current healthcare system and the value of the HIS/HIT, and to identify the factors that affect the performance of different hospitals; and 4) Design a decision support system for hospitals. Based on institutional theory, we explain the empirical findings from 2014 HIMSS database. To solve the mismatch between the patient needs and doctor’s schedule, we will propose a business model for a new integrated information management system. It gives the physicians and patients a comprehensive picture needed to understand the type of different patients. A classification schema will be designed to provide recommendations for scheduling decision, and it is supported by the interactive system

Federated Sensor Network architectural design for the Internet of Things (IoT)

An information technology that can combine the physical world and virtual world is desired. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept system that uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), WSN and barcode scanners to sense and to detect physical objects and events. This information is shared with people on the Internet. With the announcement of the Smarter Planet concept by IBM, the problem of how to share this data was raised. However, the original design of WSN aims to provide environment monitoring and control within a small scale local network. It cannot meet the demands of the IoT because there is a lack of multi-connection functionality with other WSNs and upper level applications. As various standards of WSNs provide information for different purposes, a hybrid system that gives a complete answer by combining all of them could be promising for future IoT applications. This thesis is on the subject of `Federated Sensor Network' design and architectural development for the Internet of Things. A Federated Sensor Network (FSN) is a system that integrates WSNs and the Internet. Currently, methods of integrating WSNs and the Internet can follow one of three main directions: a Front-End Proxy solution, a Gateway solution or a TCP/IP Overlay solution. Architectures based on the ideas from all three directions are presented in this thesis; this forms a comprehensive body of research on possible Federated Sensor Network architecture designs. In addition, a fully compatible technology for the sensor network application, namely the Sensor Model Language (SensorML), has been reviewed and embedded into our FSN systems. The IoT as a new concept is also comprehensively described and the major technical issues discussed. Finally, a case study of the IoT in logistic management for emergency response is given. Proposed FSN architectures based on the Gateway solution are demonstrated through hardware implementation and lab tests. A demonstration of the 6LoWPAN enabled federated sensor network based on the TCP/IP Overlay solution presents a good result for the iNET localization and tracking project. All the tests of the designs have verified feasibility and achieve the target of the IoT concept