NHS computer specialists approve RFIDs despite a negative research
June 26, 2008
Lifesaving equipment in hospitals may get switched off by radio-frequency devices (RFIDs) used for tracking people and machines, according to a new research. Radio frequency identification devices are increasingly being used in healthcare to help identify patients, and also to reveal the location of equipment. The new study has concluded that RFIDs may interfere with machines.
The latest research tested the effect of holding both powered and ‘passive’ RFIDs close to 41 medical devices, comprising ventilators, dialysis machines, pacemakers and syringe pumps.
However, NHS computer specialists state that RFIDs would only make patients safer. There are two RFID types, one that transmits information, whereas another is a ‘passive’ device that can be ‘read’ by a powered machine (when held nearby). They are cheap and small enough to be in everyday usage, in virtually everything.
At Birmingham’s Heartlands Hospital, patients heading for the operating theatre are given an RFID wristband. So even when anaesthetised, their identity can be downloaded into a nearby PDA.
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