1. RFID Technology in Healthcare and medicine
by: Dr. Fariborz Sobhan_manesh
Assistant Professor
Dept . of CSE&IT
School of Electrical
&Computer Eng.
Shiraz University

2. Problem description
An average of 195,000 people died in US hospitals in each of the years of 2000, 2001, 2002 as a result of potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors.
Patient went through wrong operation
Patient received unsuitable medication, blood
Equipment got lost
The problem is not bad people in health care,it is that good people are working in bad systems that need to be made safer"

3. Frequent healthcare and hospital management problems
1- Patient misidentification(results in wrong dosage of medication and food tray to wrong patient leads to misdiagnoses and serious medication errors)
2- Mis-transfusion of blood(wrong blood type for wrong patient)
3- Surgery on the wrong body part or site ,wrong patient or wrong surgical procedures(reported by JCAHO)
4- Drug counterfeiting (Reduce patient safety , tens of millions of dollars loss for pharmaceutical companies each year)
5- Tracking equipments(IV pumps ,Wheelchairs ,..) ,patients , medical staffs
6- Theft of medical equipments .Their vital role brings more severe consequences than its financial cost.

4. Healthcare problems and some statistics
Hospitals over-procure 20-30% of their mobile assets
Nursing staff spends 10-30% of their time searching for equipment
Assets are not serviced and maintained when required
Hospitals are having a difficult time complying with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and FDA regulations on equipment maintenance
Critical staff can not be located quickly
155,000 Euro were stolen from 11 hospitals in UK in 2005

5. Goal and Solution
Fact : Most future improvements in healthcare may not come from better medicine, but from improved systems engineering
Goal : To reduce rate of medical errors , improving patient safety and better asset management using modern technologies like RFID

6. What is RFID ?
RFID is an ADC(Automatic Data Capture) technology that uses radio-frequency waves to transfer data between a reader and a movable item to identify, categorize, track...
RFID is fast, reliable, and does not require physical sight or contact between reader/scanner and the tagged item

7. What Constitutes an RFID System?
One or more RF tags
Two or more antennas
One or more interrogators
One or more host computers
Appropriate software

8. RFID System Components (block diagram)
Reader
Antenna
Asset/Tag
Asset
Firmware
Tag
Insert
TCP/IP ~
To help you understand how tightly integrated RFID applications are to the customer’s environment, we have prepared an analysis of each system component, describing the component and environmental properties and considerations.
Host
Power
Application
Software
Customer’s
MIS
API

9. RFID Operations

10. What is RFID? -- The Tags Tags can be read-only or read-write
Tag memory can be factory or field programmed, partitionable , and optionally permanently locked
Bytes left unlocked can be rewritten over more than 100,000 times

11. RFID System Basics Read Only (Factory Programmed) Tag ID Only
WORM - Write Once, Read Many times
Reprogrammable (Field Programmable)
Read/Write (In-Use Programmable)
Tag ID Only
Programmable Database Pointer
Mission Critical Information
Portable Database

12. What is RFID? -- The Tags Tags can be attached to almost anything:
pallets or cases of product
vehicles
company assets or personnel
items such as garment, luggage, laundry
people, livestock, or pets
high value electronics such as computers, medical devices

13. Are All Tags The Same? Basic Types: Active Tag transmits radio signal
Battery powered memory, radio & circuitry
High Read Range (300 feet)
Passive
Tag reflects radio signal from reader
Reader powered
Shorter Read Range (4 inches - 15 feet)

14. Are All Tags The Same? Memory Size (16 bits - 512 kBytes +)
Variations:
Memory
Size (16 bits kBytes +)
Read-Only, Read/Write or WORM
Type: EEProm, Antifuse, FeRam
Arbitration (Anti-collision)
Ability to read/write one or many tags at a time
Frequency
125KHz GHz
Physical Dimensions
Thumbnail to Brick sizes
Price ($0.50 to $250)

15. Some tags

16. RFID tag- human implant

17. Smart labels

18. Smart label printer

19. What is RFID? -- The Readers
Readers (interrogators) can be at a fixed point such as
Entrance/exit
Point of sale
Warehouse
Readers can also be mobile, hand-held, wireless

20. RFID in healthcare
The global market for RFID tags and systems in health care will increase steadily from $90 million in 2006 to $2.1billion by 2016.
IDTechEx report "RFID in Healthcare ”

21. Patient identification

22. Patient life cycle

23. RFID _HIS linked system

24. Patient drug card on handheld

25. Patient identification
5 R’s –
Right patient
Right Chart
Right medication
Right place
Right time

26. Blood transfusion

27. Asset management

28. Example of RFID Equipment Asset Tracking in Action

29. Visibility solutions- RTLS (Real Time location Systems)

30. RFID for asset management
Asset moves
Reader detects tag presence
Updates system automatically with new location
Raises alert if moved to unauthorized area
So, when asset moves into another area, it passes by a reader …. Its tag is detected … and the information is relayed to the system, to update the assets location.
Now, when a nurse needs to locate that piece of equipment … even though it may not have been returned to its rightful place … simply visiting a web-browser on a nearby PC will show them exactly where that equipment is … minimising time wasted searching.

31. Security Alarms

32. Benefits
Management of personnel, bed, equipment and systems capacity is efficient
Automation of manual actions
Clinical staff can spend time with patients instead of searching for equipment or staff
Purchasing can reduce capital expenditures and equipment leases
Biomedical department can locate equipment for preventative maintenance

33. Information about RFID usage and projected usage in pharma industry- over years

34. Some pilot project
The Birmingham Heartlands Hospital is currently running a pilot of the RFID technology on patient undergoing ear, nose and throat surgery .The aim of the system is to ensure the correct operations
are carried out on the right patients.
Equipment tracking had a positive ROI (Return On Investment)
such as saving 2500 man-hours a year for the district attorney for Marin County (USA).
St Trudo Regional hospital and John Yperman hospital in Belgium
have implemented RFID system for Asset tracking(International HOSPITAL equipment & solutions, Vol 35 , March 2009)

35. Real World ROI’s
Memorial Health System
Albert Einstein MC

36. Memorial Health System
Increase in cash collections at all facilities
by 60% at Memorial’s largest facility
Decrease in patient throughput times at all 6 facilities
Adult Treat and Release 15% – 22%
Adult Treat and Admit 33% – 39%
Pediatric Treat and Release 36% – 38%
Improved capability to handle peak time / staffing
Memorial Health System
Includes Five Hospitals and Urgent Care Center
250,000 ED visits a year system wide

37. Applying the Numbers…
Example of estimated ROI with VIS™ Patient Flow Management at a medium/large facility

38. Albert Einstein MC
Diversion rate plummeted to 39.9 hours/month from 223 hours/month average
Annual loss of $9M turned into $12M profit in two years
Albert Einstein Medical Center
65,0000 ED visits per year ~ average 200 patients a day

39. Conclusion
Healthcare is predicted to be one of the major growth areas for RFID. A recent analysis reveals that the RFID in healthcare and pharmaceutical applications markets earned revenue of 306 million Euro in 2004 and estimates to reach 1'916.6 million Euro in 2011.

40. References GAO Report on Hospital EDs
Defense Medical Logistics Standards Support
J. Best. RFID comes to European hospitals,
J. Best. Healthcare RFID to track blood, 2006
Radio Frequency Identification Applications in Smart Hospitals, Huzifa Al Nahas, Jitender Deogun, CBMS 2007
Building a Smart Hospital using RFID technologies,
Patrik Fuhrer, Dominique Guinard, CBMS 2007

42. Thank You!