RFID Adoption In Healthcare Industry

(Via RFID Journal) Mark Roberti writes, Hospitals are discovering that RFID is the right prescription for many problems. Mark writes,When deployed properly, RFID can deliver many benefits simultaneously. In the warehouse, RFID can be deployed to increase inventory visibility, reduce labor costs and cut shipping and receiving errors all at the same time. The Jacobi Medical Center in New York City is using RFID wristbands and tablet PCs to reduce manual data entry, improve data accuracy and give staff more time to tend to patients - all while cutting. When fully deployed, the system should save Jacobi $1 million annually. Other hospitals are using RFID to track assets - wheel chairs, defribulators, incubators, even scalpels—and to keep patients safe. As the technology matures and spreads, hospitals will be able to use RFID in their complex supply chains to ensure they are ordering and receiving the right amounts of bandages, sutures, gauze and other goods.
The market for RFID and related technologies in the hospital and healthcare sector is forecast to grow to $8.8 billion by 2010. Aging population, shortages of qualified healthcare personnel and an increase in regulations besides improving efficiencies are driving global RFID implementations. RFID applications go far beyond simply tracking cases of consumer packaged goods in the supply chain. And as more hospitals adopt, prices for RFID systems geared specifically for this industry will drop, and as prices drop, the return will become greater and it will become cost-effective for hospitals to use RFID in more ways, which will increase the benefits even more.

Category : RFID