A comprehensive RFID solution to enhance inpatient medication safety

Errors involving medication administration can be costly, both in financial and in human terms. Indeed, there is much potential for errors due to the complexity of the medication administration process. Nurses are often singled out as the only responsible of these errors because they are in charge of drug administration. Nevertheless, the interventions of every actor involved in the process and the system design itself contribute to errors (Wakefield et al. (1998) [23]). Proper inpatient medication safety systems can help to reduce such errors in hospitals. In this paper, we review in depth two recent proposals (Chien et al. (2010) [7]; Huang and Ku (2009) [12]) that pursue the aforementioned objective. Unfortunately, they fail in their attempt mainly due to their security faults but interesting ideas can be drawn from both. These security faults refer to impersonation and replay attacks that could produce the generation of a forged proof stating that certain medication was administered to an inpatient when it was not. We propose a leading-edge solution to enhance inpatient medication safety based on RFID technology that overcomes these weaknesses. Our solution, named Inpatient Safety RFID system (IS-RFID), takes into account the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure of a hospital and covers every phase of the drug administration process. From a practical perspective, our system can be easily integrated within hospital IT infrastructures, has a moderate cost, is very ease to use and deals with security aspects as a key point.This work was partially supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under the RUBICON grant "Intrusion Detection in Ubiquitous Computing Technologies" awarded to Aikaterini Mitrokotsa.Publicad

Enhancing pharmaceutical packaging through a technology ecosystem to facilitate the reuse of medicines and reduce medicinal waste

The idea of reusing dispensed medicines is appealing to the general public provided its benefits are illustrated, its risks minimized, and the logistics resolved. For example, medicine reuse could help reduce medicinal waste, protect the environment and improve public health. However, the associated technologies and legislation facilitating medicine reuse are generally not available. The availability of suitable technologies could arguably help shape stakeholders’ beliefs and in turn, uptake of a future medicine reuse scheme by tackling the risks and facilitating the practicalities. A literature survey is undertaken to lay down the groundwork for implementing technologies on and around pharmaceutical packaging in order to meet stakeholders’ previously expressed misgivings about medicine reuse (’stakeholder requirements’), and propose a novel ecosystem for, in effect, reusing returned medicines. Methods: A structured literature search examining the application of existing technologies on pharmaceutical packaging to enable medicine reuse was conducted and presented as a narrative review. Results: Reviewed technologies are classified according to different stakeholders’ requirements, and a novel ecosystem from a technology perspective is suggested as a solution to reusing medicines. Conclusion: Active sensing technologies applying to pharmaceutical packaging using printed electronics enlist medicines to be part of the Internet of Things network. Validating the quality and safety of returned medicines through this network seems to be the most effective way for reusing medicines and the correct application of technologies may be the key enabler

Security architecture for mobile E-health applications in medication control

The use of Radio Frequency Identification technology (RFID) in medical context enables not only drug identification, but also a rapid and precise identification of patients, physicians, nurses or any other health caregiver. Combining RFID tag identification with structured and secured Internet of Things (IoT) solutions enable ubiquitous and easy access to medical related records, while providing control and security to all interactions. This paper defines a basic security architecture, easily deployable on mobile platforms, which would allow to establish and manage a medication prescription service in mobility context making use of electronic Personal Health Records. This security architecture is aimed to be used with a mobile e-health application (m-health) through a simple and intuitive interface, supported by RFID technology. This architecture, able to support secured and authenticated interactions, will enable an easy deployment of m-health applications. The special case of drug administration and ubiquitous medication control system, along with the corresponding Internet of Things context, is used as a case study. Both security architecture and its protocols, along with a general Ambient Assisted Living secure service for medication control, is then analyzed in the context of the Internet of Things.FEDER Funds through the Programa Operacional Fatores de Competitividade - COMPETE and by National Funds through the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674

Applications of Automated Identification Technology in EHR/EMR

Although both the electronic health record (EHR) and the electronic medical record (EMR) store an individuals computerized health information and the terminologies are often used interchangeably, there are some differences between them. Three primary approaches in Automated Identification Technology (AIT) are barcoding, radio frequency identification (RFID), and biometrics. In this paper, technology intelligence, progress, limitations, and challenges of EHR/EMR are introduced. The applications and challenges of barcoding, RFID, and biometrics in EHR/EMR are presented respectively

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

Chipped Pharmaceuticals from Production to in VIVO (in body) Drug Delivery Becoming Reality

AbstractAdvances in medical technology rely heavily on the collection and analysis of measured data to facilitate patient diagnosis and business decisions. The healthcare industry, particularly pharmaceuticals and diagnostic processes, has an ongoing need to improve item tracking and data collection to improve the quality of care while reducing cost. The remote, non-invasive characteristics of RFID can facilitate the information needs of healthcare without imposing additional burden onto the patient or staff. Properly deployed RFID enabled devices can provide convenient and accurate data for disease diagnosis, evaluation of prescription non-compliance and identification of medication dosage errors. This paper describes an all-encompassing RFID tracking system that begins with compliance documentation from the drug manufacturer through confirmation of patient compliance by capsule extraction from the bottle, into a pill case and ultimately ingested or inserted into the body. This RFID system can provide data for decision-making and facilitate compliance with FDA proposed e-pedigree requirements. This transcript provides an introduction to healthcare trends in order to motivate the need for a biocompatible RFID system. An approach to research as well as an in vitro tabletop test method is presented in light of pending research. The overall goal of the pending research is to develop biocompatible RFID tag components for use with systems beginning with the manufacturer and continuing through distribution to the point of interest within the patients body. Keywords RFID; e-pedigree; pharmaceuticals; trackin

The survey on Near Field Communication

PubMed ID: 26057043Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging short-range wireless communication technology that offers great and varied promise in services such as payment, ticketing, gaming, crowd sourcing, voting, navigation, and many others. NFC technology enables the integration of services from a wide range of applications into one single smartphone. NFC technology has emerged recently, and consequently not much academic data are available yet, although the number of academic research studies carried out in the past two years has already surpassed the total number of the prior works combined. This paper presents the concept of NFC technology in a holistic approach from different perspectives, including hardware improvement and optimization, communication essentials and standards, applications, secure elements, privacy and security, usability analysis, and ecosystem and business issues. Further research opportunities in terms of the academic and business points of view are also explored and discussed at the end of each section. This comprehensive survey will be a valuable guide for researchers and academicians, as well as for business in the NFC technology and ecosystem.Publisher's Versio