Fuzzy Logic-Based Approach to Detecting a Passive RFID Tag in an Outpatient Clinic

Measuring Sensitivity and Precision of Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS): Definition, Protocol and Demonstration for Clinical Relevance

The ability of a Real Time Location System (RTLS) to provide correct information in a clinical environment is an important consideration in evaluating the effectiveness of the technology. While past efforts describe how well the technology performed in a lab environment, the performance of such technology has not been specifically defined or evaluated in a practice setting involving workflow and movement. Clinical environments pose complexity owing to various layouts and various movements. Further, RTL systems are not equipped to provide true negative information (where an entity is not located). Hence, this study defined sensitivity and precision in this context, and developed a simulation protocol to serve as a systematic testing framework using actors in a clinical environment. The protocol was used to measure the sensitivity and precision of an RTL system in the emergency department space of a quaternary care medical center. The overall sensitivity and precision were determined to be 84 and 93% respectively. These varied for patient rooms, staff area, hallway and other rooms.

RFID in Healthcare – Current Trends and the Future

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) enables automatic identification of objects using radio waves. The identified objects can be in and out of the line of sight and there is no need for physical contact with them. RFID technology is deployed in a wide range of industries such as supply chain management, inventory control, farming (to track animals), e-Passports, the tracking of humans (in prisons and hospitals) and in healthcare [1]. The three key elements of an RFID system are the tags, readers and the backend server. Tags are devices physically attached to objects and readers (wired or mobile) recognize the presence of objects in its range.

On the designing of a tamper resistant prescription RFID access control system

Recently, Chen et al. have proposed a novel tamper resistant prescription RFID access control system, published in the Journal of Medical Systems. In this paper we consider the security of the proposed protocol and identify some existing weaknesses. The main attack is a reader impersonation attack which allows an active adversary to impersonate a legitimate doctor, e.g. the patient's doctor, to access the patient's tag and change the patient prescription. The presented attack is quite efficient. To impersonate a doctor, the adversary should eavesdrop one session between the doctor and the patient's tag and then she can impersonate the doctor with the success probability of '1'. In addition, we present efficient reader-tag to back-end database impersonation, de-synchronization and traceability attacks against the protocol. Finally, we propose an improved version of protocol which is more efficient compared to the original protocol while provides the desired security against the presented attacks.

RFID-enabled healthcare applications, issues and benefits: an archival analysis (1997-2011)

In this paper, a comprehensive review of articles published between 1997 and 2011 in the Journal of Medical Systems (JMS) on RFID technology is presented. A total of 22 papers are analyzed using a classification framework that has three dimensions: RFID-enabled healthcare applications, RFID-enabled healthcare issues, and RFID-enabled healthcare benefits. In addition, an invitation sent to all authors of the papers accepted for the special issue on RFID for the JMS allows them to position their various papers within the classification framework. Finally, a list of future research directions is presented.

Applied patent RFID systems for building reacting HEPA air ventilation system in hospital operation rooms

RFID technology, an automatic identification and data capture technology to provide identification, tracing, security and so on, was widely applied to healthcare industry in these years. Employing HEPA ventilation system in hospital is a way to ensure healthful indoor air quality to protect patients and healthcare workers against hospital-acquired infections. However, the system consumes lots of electricity which cost a lot. This study aims to apply the RFID technology to offer a unique medical staff and patient identification, and reacting HEPA air ventilation system in order to reduce the cost, save energy and prevent the prevalence of hospital-acquired infection. The system, reacting HEPA air ventilation system, contains RFID tags (for medical staffs and patients), sensor, and reacting system which receives the information regarding the number of medical staff and the status of the surgery, and controls the air volume of the HEPA air ventilation system accordingly. A pilot program was carried out in a unit of operation rooms of a medical center with 1,500 beds located in central Taiwan from Jan to Aug 2010. The results found the air ventilation system was able to function much more efficiently with less energy consumed. Furthermore, the indoor air quality could still keep qualified and hospital-acquired infection or other occupational diseases could be prevented.

The adoption and implementation of RFID technologies in healthcare: a literature review

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology not only offers tracking capability to locate equipment, supplies and people in real time, but also provides efficient and accurate access to medical data for health professionals. However, the reality of RFID adoption in healthcare is far behind earlier expectation. This study reviews literature on the use of RFID in healthcare/hospitals following a formal innovation-decision framework. We aim to identify the common applications, potential benefits, barriers, and critical success factors. Our study facilitates quick assessment and provides guidance for researchers and practitioners in adopting RFID in medical arenas. Many earlier adopters in healthcare found RFID to be functional and useful in such areas as asset tracking and patient identification. Major barriers to adoption include technological limitations, interference concerns, prohibitive costs, lack of global standards and privacy concerns. Better designed RFID systems with low cost and privacy issues addressed are needed to increase acceptance of RFID in healthcare.

Patient safety through RFID: vulnerabilities in recently proposed grouping protocols

As RFID-tagged systems become ubiquitous, acceptance of this technology by the general public necessitates addressing related security/privacy issues. The past eight years have seen an increasing number of publications in this direction, specifically using cryptographic approaches. Recently, the Journal of Medical Systems published two papers addressing security/privacy issues through cryptographic protocols. We consider the proposed protocols and identify some existing vulnerabilities.