RFID Innovation 'Improves Patient Safety'

Speaking at the London and South East Specialist Group, Colin Jervis, a member of the BCS committee, explained that RFID is being used in hospitals in a wide range of innovations.

For example, it is being used to add digital images of patients to their electronic records, as well as in supply chains to prevent illegal or fake drugs being distributed to hospitals.

Health providers all over the world are continuing to think up new ways of using RFID to improve patient care, including an innovative method at Nice University of using tags to provide better delivery of meals to older patients.

Writing in Health Informatics Now, Mr Jervis, who is also director of healthcare at Kinetic Consulting, said: "The five rights of patient care are often given as right patient, right drug, right dose, right route and right time.

"By further integrating the digital and healthcare worlds, radio frequency identification, which allows tagged objects to be wirelessly identified at a distance, offers a way to maintain those five rights, improving patient safety."