RFID Patient Tracking - Invaluable Service

Technology had caught up in the healthcare industry. This time, such a mundane but very important task termed RFID patient tracking is now a reality. The technology is applying patient tracking by having them wear wrist bands embedded with RFID tags.

The tags interact with the hospital’s information system for automatic tasks like admissions, transfers and discharges. These tags had been approved for use as tags for humans. In reality, these tiny tags help disoriented, elderly and other high-risk patients to a more secure status, including the storage of their full medical records.

Mechanics

RFID tags are usually supplied as wristbands or special badges. They are equipped with tamper-proof mechanism to prevent these from being removed. If an attempt is done, they emit an alert signal.

On the other hand, the readers for RFID tags are placed in specific places in the hospital where patients can be located within a measurable distance. This distance is defined by the system integrator working with the client (hospitals). 

This distance is small enough for the patient to be located with some confidence. It should, however, be also large enough within the area covered in terms that are cost effective with the number of readers needed. (The larger the area, the more readers are required.)

In practical terms, the read range of the active RFID varies from 10 feet to a thousand feet flexibility within the coverage area. RFID tags can be designed and programmed to track patients outdoors of the building or roaming in the campus area.

Special alerts can be programmed depending on the needs of the facility, the area or the patient.

Components

The RFID has 3 components to its technology – the RFID reader, or the interrogator unit (it has an antenna and transceiver), the RFID tag and the transponder attached to the item being tracked. There is also middleware software that communicates with existing systems.

When the reader sends a signal using a specific predetermined frequency, the tag comes to life and sends back information to the receiver. In practice, both devices are communicating with each other.

Passive and active tags

The passive RFID does not have a power source. The power comes from the reader. The active magnetic coil inside is activated when the reader calls to the tag, energizes the coil which in turn activates the circuits that hold the pre-programmed information in its memory.

There are several factors that influence the decision to use a specific tag type. These would include environmental conditions, application purpose, and the degree of accuracy needed in the process of locating a person (or an item).

Antennas

Passive RFIDs give an organization to power to recognize and record when a RFID tag or transponder is in the proximity of an RFID reader (as noted by its antenna). Antennas are usually installed if the organization wants to record the presence of an RFID tag.

These antennas can be installed anywhere in the facility. (No two organizations have the same requirement.) Typically, RFID antennas are installed at “choke points” in the facility like doorways.

RFID patient tracking is one of these invaluable services in a hospital.