Accessing Antecedents and Outcomes of RFID Implementation in Health Care

This research first conceptualizes, develops, and validates four constructs for studying RFID in health care, including Drivers (Internal and External), Implementation Level (Clinical Focus and Administrative Focus), Barriers (Cost Issues, Lack of Understanding, Technical Issues, and Privacy and Security Concerns), and Benefits (Patient Care, Productivity, Security and Safety, Asset Management, and Communication). Data for the study were collected from 88 health care organizations and the measurement scales were validated using structural equation modeling. Second, a framework is developed to discuss the causal relationships among the above mentioned constructs. It is found that Internal Drivers are positively related to Implementation Level, which in turn is positively related to Benefits and Performance. In addition, Barriers are found to be positively related to Implementation Level, which is in contrast to the originally proposed negative relationship. The research also compares perception differences regarding RFID implementation among the non-implementers, future implementers, and current implementers of RFID. It is found that both future implementers and current implementers consider RFID barriers to be lower and benefits to be higher compared to the non-implementers. This paper ends with our research implications, limitations and future research

Market Analysis: Wavetrend Technologies, Inc.

Our project team performed a market analysis for Wavetrend Technologies, Inc. Wavetrend is a world leader in the deployment of comprehensive track-and-trace solutions providing real-time visibility of assets, people and modes of transportation. This project recommended implementation of RFID technology in the aviation and healthcare industries because of profit potential and the technology\u27s advantages. These recommendations were supported by a great deal of market research gathered from a variety of primary and secondary sources. Our key primary source was a survey distributed to a number of Wavetrend\u27s customers while our secondary sources consisted of various RFID technology periodicals, several academic publications in the WPI database, Yahoo! Finance, and ABI Research

Performance Improvements Based on RFID - Empirical Findings from a Cross-Sectional Study

Based on a cross-sectoral survey among 114 RFID-using companies in Germany, the constitutive factors for performance improvement are evaluated. Analyzing realized target variables such as lead time or production downtime, we can show that the performance-enhancing impact of RFID can be ascribed to the three effects automation, informatization, and transformation. However, automation alone – i.e. a reduction of manual data acquisition activities through RFID – does not systematically contribute to performance enhancement. Rather, we found evidence indicating that it is necessary to exploit improved information about enterprise resources (informatization) and/or to re-engineer business processes (transformation) on the basis of RFID. No matter what sector an enterprise belongs to, investments in RFID technology that are exclusively aimed at an automated acquisition of information are inadvisable. This might be of special interest to companies who are facing a mandate in the near future

RFID-ENABLED CAPABILITIES AND THEIR IMPACT ON HEALTHCARE PROCESS PERFORMANCE

In recent years, hospitals have begun to invest in RFID systems to control costs, reduce errors, and improve quality of care. Despite the transformative impact that RFID may have in healthcare settings, few studies have examined how and why this change may occur. The purpose of this study is to systematically understand how RFID can transform work practices and address cost, safety, and quality of care issues, most notably in inventory management. We leverage a sociomateriality framework to explore the causal linkages that connect the material properties of RFID with the behavioral changes that are observed through its use. By linking the material properties of RFID with innovations in existing practices, we provide a data-driven account of how and why RFID is useful in this setting. In doing so, we also contribute to recent work by IS scholars who argue for a reconfiguration of conventional assumptions regarding the role of technology in contemporary organizations. By adopting this perspective, we recast the issue of whether or not IT matters, and instead offer interesting and useful insight into how and why it does

A review of radio frequency identification technologies and impacts on the hospital supply chain: 2002–2012

Supply costs are the second largest expenditure in hospitals, accounting for more than one third of the average operating budget. RFID technology can reduce these costs, improve patient safety, and supply chain management by increasing the ability to track and locate equipment, as well as monitoring theft prevention, distribution management, and patient billing. Findings of this study have shown that the application of RFID on medical equipment and supplies have resulted in efficiency increase in healthcare with lower costs and increased quality services. Even though the cost of RFID implementation is decreasing, the total expenditures are still significant and the return on investment remains unclear

Elimination of misconduct in manual counting process as an improvement of inventory accuracy in a manufacturing company

Managing inventory is crucial especially for manufacturing companies as it has a direct influence on profits of the company. In order to have an efficient inventory management, inventory accuracy need to be achieved and this can be achieved by leveraging technologies and techniques that can minimize the human error. The objective of this study is to investigate the factors affecting inventory inaccuracy in Factory 21 of ABC manufacturing company. This study reveals that the inventory inaccuracy is influenced by the order received in the factory, which is due to the human misconduct during the manual counting process of cartons on pallet. This paper proposes the deployment of Arduino sensor network system in automating the carton counting process.The findings for this study show that the automation system able to improve the inventory record accuracy in ABC manufacturing company