RFID technology in health care

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a technology that allows to store and retrieve a huge amount of data through electromagnetic transmission using radio-frequency (RF) devices and a strategically installed technological structure (Seol et al., 2017). RFID technology uses radio waves and has the capacity to identify thousands of tagged items per second via wireless transmission (Yazici, 2014). More recently, the healthcare sector is taking advantage of information technologies to improve the health delivery, the patient safety, and to save costs. The use of bar codes has spread very much among hospitals, but the limitations of this technology are causing many concerns. For this reason the healthcare industry and most hospitals are searching for other new alternatives (Coustasse et al., 2013). Currently bar codes and associated technology are being replaced with RFID tags and readers in hospitals, to manage healthcare products and to improve operations’ efficiency, reduce the inventory level, and achieve substantial saving (Chan et al., 2012). Nowadays, the RFID technology is applied to real-time traceability, communication, identification, location of assets, medical devices and people, preventing counterfeiting of drugs, saving nurse time in locating medical equipment or tools, identifying under- or overutilization of medical equipment, reducing medical errors in laboratory tests, managing blood distribution, improving security of a hospital or treatment center, and scanning information from implanted device (Yazici, 2014; Fosso Wamba et al., 2013).