Positive Patient Identification using RFID and Wireless  Networks

• The increased focus on patient safety in hospitals has yielded a flood of new technologies and tools seeking to improve the quality of patient care at the point-of-care. Hospitals are complex institutions by nature, and are constantly challenged to improve the quality of healthcare delivered to patients while trying to reduce the rate of medical errors and improve patient safety. Here a simple mistake such as patient misidentification, specimen misidentification, wrong medication, or wrong blood transfusion can cause the loss of a patient's life. The focus of this paper is the implementation and evaluation of a handheld-based patient identification system that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) and 802.11b wireless networks to identify patients. In this approach, each patient is given a RFID wristband which contains demographic information (patient ID number, patient summary, hospital code) of the patient. A handheld device equipped with 802.11b wireless connectivity and a RFID reader is then used by the medical staff to read the patient's wristband and identify the patient. This work was carried out at the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at the University College Hospital Galway, Ireland and in co-operation with the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Kommunikationssystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Communication Systems (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Annan hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Other Health Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

positive patient identification

patient misidentification

radio frequency identification

wireless patient identification

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