The Marriage of Passive and Active Technologies in Healthcare

Automated identification technologies (AITs) include a variety of technologies such as RFID and barcodes that are used to identify objects. The benefits of using AITs are that they have the ability to increase efficiency and reduce data entry errors. Currently, AITs have commonly been used in access control and security applications in several industries. Such industries include those that must track products through the supply chain or manufacturing process or those requiring the identification of products at the point of sale or point of service [1]. With the success that AITs have seen in other industries, it is only natural to apply these technologies to the healthcare industry in order to improve operational processes and patient safety.