RFID is now being used as an automation tool, much as it has been in industrial manufacturing, to monitor and manage critical process flows in hospitals and laboratories. Central sterile and laboratory processes require the same checks and balances as complex assembly processes, after all. Building a surgical kit, and managing the disinfection cycle of surgical instruments is not much different than kitting shipments in a manufacturing facility or managing materials in a clean room environment.
At the HIMSS show this month, we demonstrated a surgical instrument tracking application with RFID using a Motorola handheld reader and ruggedized tags from Xerafy. It resulted in many interesting discussions on how process automation may be one of the hidden benefits of an Intelligent Hospital.