Impact of Mobile and Wireless Technology on Healthcare Delivery services

Modern healthcare delivery services embrace the use of leading edge technologies and new scientific discoveries to enable better cures for diseases and better means to enable early detection of most life-threatening diseases. The healthcare industry is finding itself in a state of turbulence and flux. The major innovations lie with the use of information technologies and particularly, the adoption of mobile and wireless applications in healthcare delivery [1]. Wireless devices are becoming increasingly popular across the healthcare field, enabling caregivers to review patient records and test results, enter diagnosis information during patient visits and consult drug formularies, all without the need for a wired network connection [2]. A pioneering medical-grade, wireless infrastructure supports complete mobility throughout the full continuum of healthcare delivery. It facilitates the accurate collection and the immediate dissemination of patient information to physicians and other healthcare care professionals at the time of clinical decision-making, thereby ensuring timely, safe, and effective patient care. This paper investigates the wireless technologies that can be used for medical applications, and the effectiveness of such wireless solutions in a healthcare environment. It discusses challenges encountered; and concludes by providing recommendations on policies and standards for the use of such technologies within hospitals

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

Leveraging RFID in hospitals: patient life cycle and mobility perspectives

The application of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to patient care in hospitals and healthcare facilities has only just begun to be accepted. This article develops a set of frameworks based on patient life cycle and time-and-motion perspectives for how RFID can be leveraged atop existing information systems to offer many benefits for patient care and hospital operations. It examines how patients are processed from admission to discharge, and considers where RFID can be applied. From a time-and-motion perspective, it shows how hospitals can apply RFID in three ways: fixed RFID readers interrogate mobile objects; mobile, handheld readers interrogate fixed objects; and mobile, handheld readers interrogate mobile objects. Implemented properly, RFID can significantly aid the medical staff in performing their duties. It can greatly reduce the need for manual entry of records, increase security for both patient and hospital, and reduce errors in administering medication. Hospitals are likely to encounter challenges, however, when integrating the technology into their day-to-day operations. What we present here can help hospital administrators determine where RFID can be deployed to add the most value

A Framework for the Implementation of RFID Systems

There are an increasing number of organizations planning to implement Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems to enhance their competitiveness. Due to the novelty of the technology, many managerial challenges exist in determining and planning for the implementation of such systems. These challenges often lead to wasted efforts and resources, as well as to failed implementations. This paper presents a systematic and holistic RFID implementation framework which has been validated by both users and experts. The framework outlines the important tasks to be performed in each step of the implementation process. To enable practitioners to make informed go/no‐go decisions, essential considerations of implementation are also discussed in this paper. Furthermore, the critical success factors for the deployment of such systems are also elaborated

An Integrated Conceptual Framework for RFID Enabled Healthcare

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is a wireless communication technology that facilitates automatic identification and data capture without human intervention. Since 2000s, RFID applications in the health care industry are increasing.  RFID has brought many improvements in areas like patient care, patient safety, equipment tracking, resource utilization, processing time reduction and so on. On the other hand, often deployment of RFID is questioned on the issues like high capital investment, technological complexity, and privacy concerns. Exploration of existing literature indicates the presence of works on the topics like asset management, patient management, staff management, institutional advantages, and organizational issues. However, most of the works are focused on a particular issue. Still now, scholarly attempts to integrate all the facades of RFID-enabled healthcare are limited. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework that represents the scope for implementation of this technology and the various dimensions of RFID-enabled healthcare and demonstrate them in detail. Also, we have discussed the critical issues that can prove to be potential barriers to its successful implementation and current approaches to resolving these. We also discuss some of the regulatory initiatives encouraging its adoption in the healthcare industry. Also, we have highlighted the future research opportunities in this domain

Building Blocks of the Internet of Things: State of the Art and Beyond

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