Use of RFID set to grow in the health care industry

Fom Automobiles to Aviation and from Medical Industry to Shipping, the Buzz word one gets to hear is the same everywhere – RFID. With the advantages that RFID offers, it’s purely a matter of time before those small kinks viz. privacy issues, funding gets ironed out and reaches a stage of wider scale acceptance.

The Future for Healthcare:

The Healthcare Industry ,primarily thanks to the new tagging of drugs for anti-counterfeiting and real time location of staff, patients and assets for safety, security and cost control, is likely to show a growth in the use of RFID. RFID is poised to grow at a predicted 3% to 8% right across the globe stretching from USA and good part of Europe in the west to Taiwan, Japan, Korea and even tiny state of Singapore. The market for RFID tags and systems in healthcare will rise rapidly from $90 million in 2006 to $2.1 billion in 2016. Primarily, this will be because of item level tagging of drugs and Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) for staff, patients and assets to improve efficiency, safety and availability and to reduce losses.

Benefits therein:

(1) Tagging will allow us to ensure the correct medication is provided to the right patient. Errors can be expensive and some in the worst-case scenarios may even lead to death of patients. RFID with its ability to match the patient to the treatment will greatly improve that.
(2) RFID will help stop counterfeiting of drugs. This way you will have trace ability of the drug by establishing the Pedigree at all times.
(3) Use of RFID will also help address Privacy issues. Imagine a patient with a wrist tag that automatically talks to the Tablet PC with the doctor an populates his screen without you having to utter a word about your ailment history.

Conclusion:

There is no denying that Healthcare may never enjoy the biggest application of RFID ever; but its special requirements, un-quantifiable benefits and promise of better paybacks in the long run often make it seem very profitable and worthwhile business for suppliers.