RFID: the medical miracle

Atsushi Koshio is Director of Healthcare Business at medRF, a wireless health strategy consultancy based in Tokyo. He has a finger on the pulse of Japans healthcare industry, where wireless solutions have flourished since the 1990s. Mobile technology, he thinks, has the potential to change healthcare. But the kind of wireless technology that could make the greatest impact, radio frequency identification (RFID), has not been widely adopted.

"RFID is not just key to making better use of physical assets" says Koshio. "It can have a substantial impact on patient safety. It also has the potential to produce a phenomenal return on investment. But high up front costs are still proving to be a significant barrier to entry, given the state of the economy".

Cost of entry for RFID may be high relative to other kinds of wireless technology but so are returns, believes Jorma Lalla, whose company Nordic ID has been busy optimizing RFID technology for the past 15 years. The CEO of the Salo, Finland-based RFID mobile computer manufacturer sees change on the horizon. "As the technology becomes more ubiquitous, prices drop across the board on tags, readers and associated devices" he says. "Other supply chains are now using RFID end-to-end and I think that it wont be long before we see wholesale adoption in the field of medicine. Besides, it is a perfect fit with the criticality of healthcare".

RFID key to trackable processes and data

When human lives hang in the balance, RFID may indeed be a perfect fit. RFID tags have the capacity to record new data almost indefinitely, resulting in mountains of information attached to the item or person in question, reducing the possibility of error and obviating the need to scan and connect to a remote database. RFID tags can form part of a hospital wristband, a blood product label, a biomedical implant or any medical device. They can be tiny or large, immersible or flexible. Unlike barcodes, tags can also be read from meters away, for example by an interrogator mounted on the ceiling or beside a door.

Koshio and Lalla both agree that affordability is the single largest barrier in the health sector worldwide. "But itis definitely where wireless use in healthcare will end up" says Koshio. "The advantages of RFID over any other technology are just so overwhelming".

RFID increases blood tracking safety & efficiency

To date, RFID has made some important inroads in various healthcare niches around the world. At a blood processing center on the Spanish island of Mallorca, for example, RFID has increased efficiency, safety and maximized the use of a perishable resource. Traditional, barcode-based blood product tracking meant unpacking crates of frozen blood bags and scanning or reading each bag in turn.no small task with 30,000 bags packed 80 to a crate in a deep freezer. A complicating factor is that each bag was tagged with up to six barcodes as it passed through the stages of its journey. These all needed to be scanned at each step. RFID tags have shortcut the process by storing all information, including a record of ambient temperature over time, on each bags re-recordable RFID tag. Staff can quickly find blood bags by scanning up to 400 bags per second and drilling down to see all the information associated with any bag. Because it used to take so long to find the right bag in subarctic temperatures, staff might have ended their search more quickly by sending a 28-day old bag of blood of the correct type. Now the optimal bag, that closest to expiry, is quickly found and put to use, maximizing a precious resource.

Hospital returns 186% on RFID investment

RFID recently hit the mainstream at a major California hospital when the health centre became one of the first in the U.S. to jump high and clear over the RFID cost barrier. In May 2010, Mission Hospital, the largest healthcare provider in Orange County, rolled out a hybrid RFID/infrared tracking system. Mike Kohler, the hospitals Director of Material Management, has never looked back. He pegs ROI to date at 186%.

"I don't know how a large medical centre can continue to maintain all the different parameters they have to and be state of the art without RFID" states Kohler. "It simplifies processes, drives down costs and you can literally raise your ability to care for patients."
The system implemented at Mission Hospital is designed to improve logistics by keeping track of medical devices. Each carries an RFID tag that tracks whereabouts as well as parameters such as last maintenance and/or cleaning. With a few keystrokes, administrators and medical professionals can locate all devices. This has boosted device utilization rates and eliminated equipment rentals and hoarding, a common problem in hospitals worldwide. Equipment shrinkage has also dropped from $150,000 per year to zero.

Financial returns are just the beginning

The logistical and financial advantages are real, but Kohler sees that as just the start. "Mission has a large trauma wing with lots of specialized equipment, some of which is called into use on other floors. When a trauma case comes in, itis critical to have that equipment ready and waiting. Since itis now tagged, we can get it back within a minute or two, ready for the patients arrival. And in the U.S. healthcare system, thatis a marketable strategic advantage".
Kohler is most excited about future plans to capitalize on the greatest advantage of all: RFIDs capacity to improve patient care. The upcoming expansion of Missions RFID system will center on ways to reduce cross-contamination, especially hand washing, the number one preventer of cross-infection in hospital environments. Should they neglect to wash their hands as they move in and out of patient rooms, healthcare professionals will receive alerts on their mobile devices.

Why is healthcare slow to adopt RFID?

Considering all the benefits and the return on investment, the question that many logistics professionals are asking themselves is, why hasnt every hospital implemented RFID already? Part of the reason has to do with the global healthcare industry's main objection to adopting ICT solutions in general: business continuity. When the ability to provide patient care is so crucial, no matter what happens, you've got to be absolutely certain that you can trust your systems. Itis the reason why hospitals have generators for back-up power: to maintain the ability to provide care, come hell or high water. Paper may be hard to keep track of, but historically it has been very reliable.
"Now that ICT solutions have proven their resilience beyond question in virtually every industry" observes Koshio, "healthcare is moving wholesale into wireless communication adoption. Weare at the cusp of a new era centered around RFID". Kohler couldn't agree more. "I believe that within 15 years, virtually all healthcare processes will be electronically managed. The human component will center more around stocking and moving equipment, not managing it".

As exemplified by blood product tracking on Spainis Balearic Islands, more than just equipment and people will be managed: blood products, neural implants, cardiac valves, bone morphogenic proteins and tissue implants all have expiration dates and need to be stored at the correct temperature and humidity. RFID can help to better manage such precious resources, saving money and lives.

"If it were simply a replacement for existing technology" says Lalla "RFID would continue its slow growth in the field of healthcare. The fact is that RFID enables hospitals to do things that they have never done before, like enforcing hand washing and eliminating hoarding and shrinkage. This is huge. It wont be long before the global healthcare sector wakes up to the tremendous advantages of RFID".