RFID Chips - Good for health care, but potentially dangerous?
I was slightly disappointed to see the news that RFID chips may potentially be harmful to patients with pacemakers and other medical devices. RFID (radio frequency identification) chips/”tags” can be embedded into anything from expensive medications to IV infusion pumps to aid in preventing counterfeiting of drugs or supplies or just to help the hospital track inventory, so nurses aren’t standing around wondering where a piece of equipment is when it was left on another floor. RFID chips have also been pioneered as an addition to regular patient ID bracelets.
It’s important to note that the study (abstract from JAMA here, with a nice commentary from Dr. Donald Berwick of IHI here) was done in an ICU with no patients, so although some instances of potentially hazardous interference between RFID and another technology were observed, this data is certainly not a death knell for RFID technology — it only means that some workarounds might be necessary, along with weighing of potential pluses and minuses for especially at-risk patient populations, maybe including those in intensive care units.
This hurdle is certainly one that technology will overcome. RFID is an enormously promising technology that could save money and lives when applied to numerous health care interactions.
Tags: health care technology, JAMA, RFIDRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Hospitals and Doctors, IT and health care
5 opinions for RFID Chips - Good for health care, but potentially dangerous?
Blue Heron
Jun 28, 2008 at 12:58 pm
RFID is a bad idea for the most part. Items like equipment and supplies are ok. Utilizing them on patients is over the line at this point and time until more can be done to ensure what else the data from these chips will be used for. Remember we are currently in conflict over the FISA bill which wants to grant immunity to the Telcoms for listening in on everyones phone conversations and internet surfing. I think in the future this will fall into the same category and violate peoples privacy some kind of way even though the technology is brilliant and has been used for some time including unknowingly on humans. We need to know where is this headed in the future.
follow the money
Jul 1, 2008 at 11:30 pm
this appears to be waiting for a good reporter
The “TNO Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, Leiden” is listed as one of the “Author Affiliations” for the RFID study (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/299/24/2884).
A recent announcement (May 2008) was made regarding strengthened collaboration between TNO and Sintef, another research organization in Europe similar to TNO (http://www.mwjournal.com/search/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_5758&SearchWord=TNO) .
Wilfred Booij is a senior scientist at Sintef.
Wilfred Booij is also CTO of “Sonitor Technologies”.
What does Sonitor Technologies do? They have a competing technology to RFID for real-time location systems which they are pushing in healthcare.They are heralding the study on their website as validation of their own technology, saying “JAMA report lends credibility to Sonitor’s Technology” (http://www.sonitor.com/)
Jen
Jul 2, 2008 at 10:41 am
Thanks — I made a new post about this. Check it out!
tony
Jul 2, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Where is the FDA on these guys? Where was EMI testing for sponge systems using RFID??? They have no published testing data!! Patient safety has no easy button!
healthpolicymaven
Jul 5, 2008 at 4:10 pm
It is all too easy to use patients to advance “scientific studies”, but the ramifications of missused privilege and private data is not addressed until the damage is done. One wonders how this tool would inhibit compliance with the HIPPA privacy mandates. Abscent good policy and adherence to protections, this is a slippery slope.
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