RFID, TNO, Sonitor… and a potential conflict of interest?
Commenter follow_the_ money had the following to say on my June 24th post about a JAMA article raising questions about the safety of RFID in hospitals (reprinted from comment section):
“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/)”
With all of the news about conflict of interest lately, I thought I’d take a look into this matter.
The authors of the study were:
Remko van der Togt, MSc;
Erik Jan van Lieshout, MD ;Reinout Hensbroek, MSc ;E. Beinat, PhD ;J. M. Binnekade, PhD ;P. J. M. Bakker, MD, PhD
Let’s see what their affiliations are.
Spatial Information Laboratory, Institute of Environmental Studies, VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Mr van der Togt and Dr Beinat); Department of Intensive Care and Mobile Intensive Care Unit (Drs van Lieshout and Binnekade), Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics (Dr Binnekade), and Department of Quality Assurance and Innovation (Dr Bakker), Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; TNO Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, Leiden, the Netherlands(Mr Hensbroek); and Faculty of Sciences, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria (Dr Beinat).
TNO Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research has a Wikipedia page here if you’re interested (TNO = Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek, or “Applied Scientific Research”) TNO and SINTEF did indeed sign an agreement earlier this year:
“The leading research organizations TNO (the Netherlands) and SINTEF (Norway) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop and market their joint services on a number of fields of technology.”
I checked out Wilfred Booij’s profile on 
LinkedIn, and he does have affiliations with SINTEF and Sonitor. Here is a screen shot:
Even more interesting, Booij is quoted as discussing the superiority of Sonitor’s technology to RFID, and he speaks directly about the JAMA report:
“Ten years ago, the scientists at Sonitor Technologies concluded that the use of RF technology for tracking and positioning of equipment, people and charts should be avoided in a healthcare environment because of the serious risk of electromagnetic interference with sensitive medical equipment.” says Dr. Wilfred Booij, CTO of Sonitor Technologies. “This was a key reason for why Sonitor Technologies set out and developed a positioning and tracking solution based on (non-RF) Ultrasound signals. Ultrasound signals inherently do not cause interference with medical equipment since ultrasound signal are acoustical pressure waves just as ordinary sound. - And as we all know sound does not interfere with medical equipment.”
My verdict? Definitely a little fishy. I think that this merits further investigation… if anyone else finds some interesting stuff, post it in the comments!
Tags: Booij, conflict of interest, JAMA, RFID, Sonitor, TNORelated Stories
POSTED IN: IT and health care, Pharma and Biotech Industry
7 opinions for RFID, TNO, Sonitor… and a potential conflict of interest?
Blue Heron
Jul 2, 2008 at 3:15 pm
The whole RFID issue is very questionable and this is another example of it trying to be worked into acceptance for the healthcare industry. Although it may work with equipment related items I don’t think its a good idea to implement on humans. I don’t want to get into a rant on RFID but there is plenty out there that suggest that this may not be a good idea. I think you should look at this issue more closely and that it probably should be reported on.
Blue Heron
Jul 2, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Go to http://www.spychips.com for more info.
Jen
Jul 2, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Blue Heron,
I think that what you are talking about is a different issue. This isn’t about using RFID chips in people… it is about using RFID technology to track equipment and items such as drugs. Also, there’s a big difference between active RFID and passive RFID. It is actually an amazing technology and has great potential in areas such as patient safety and preventing counterfeit drugs from being distributed. I don’t think anyone is thinking that embedding RFID into people is a health care application, but putting it in hospital bracelets, on infusion pumps, or in packaging for pharmaceuticals is relatively cheap, very effective, and more user-friendly than barcodes that need to be scanned (and can be more easily forged).
Miranda
Jul 3, 2008 at 8:37 am
Unfortunately, more and more science is being supported by corporations. With research grant money being cut, universities and others have to turn to corporate money in order to fund certain research. And that is starting to influence the results. We really do have to look at the affiliations of people doing the studies in order to see who is paying the — and whether it would constitute a conflict of interest.
Blue Heron
Jul 3, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Jen,
Thank you for the clarification. I can accept using this technology for other than using it on humans. Also agree with Miranda its all about the corporate influence.
Terry Aasen
Jul 3, 2008 at 3:13 pm
As the CEO of Sonitor Technologies, Inc., the American arm of Sonitor Technologies (headquartered in Norway) I can understand that at a distance some connections may be drawn between the Dutch University (who conducted the RFID study which was reported in JAMA), SINTEF and Sonitor. SINTEF is a fairly large Norwegian Science/R&D services organization with more than two thousand engineers and scientists who are engaged in everything from basic materials research to complex automated processing design, etc. across multiple industries and with many international clients and partners.
Sonitor has utilized the services of SINTEF and employs highly qualified engineers who have worked for SINTEF previously. This is nothing out of the ordinary within the tightly knit technical sector in Oslo (the capitol of Norway). Sonitor’s CTO, Dr. Wilfred Booij, who by the way is Dutch . . . (for a so-inclined reader it may look like “the plot thickens” . . .) used to work for SINTEF, but is now 100% employed by Sonitor. The fact is that there are absolutely no connections between the Dutch RFID study published in JAMA, its initiation or the publishing of its results and Sonitor or Dr. Booij, either directly or indirectly through SINTEF.
We at Sonitor discovered the JAMA article as inquiries started to come in from our reseller partners and customers who had seen and heard about the article, and who were seeking clarification on how the Sonitor ultrasound RTLS technology behaves relative to the electromagnetic interference as reported in JAMA. This prompted us to issue the Sonitor Press Release of June 26 on the same topic.
Sonitor’s ultrasound RTLS technology was specifically developed for use in hospitals. One of the key drivers in Sonitor’s selection of ultrasound over radio frequency for its RTLS technology was that is a well-known fact that there is a concern about the risk of electromagnetic interference when new sources of radio frequency transmission are introduced into an environment where there are thousands of electronic patient care devices which can be affected by interference. Ultrasound is, in-fact, a sound, and sound does not interfere with electronic devices . . . The other prime reason that Sonitor chose ultrasound (and not RF) is because Ultrasound RTLS (USID) provides 100% room-level accuracy “out of the box”. This is a very important performance criterion for hospital RTLS where reliable location accuracy by room or even sub-room level is critical when locating patients, staff and equipment for the purpose of improving workflow, patient care and overall operational efficiency and productivity. RF based RTLS cannot reliably discern if a transmitting tag is located on one side of a wall or the other, and therefore cannot provide room-level location accuracy. One of the reasons for this is that there is a high level of electromagnetic interference in the hospital environment which affects RF RTLS signals and is constantly and unpredictably shifting, and therefore cannot be compensated for by calibration. So interference is a two way street for RF based RTLS . . . but not for Ultrasound based RTLS (USID).
Please visit http://www.sonitor.com for more information.
Miranda
Oct 6, 2008 at 11:52 am
Interesting. And yet, we have the following:
http://www.oslocancercluster.no/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=11&Itemid=39
Wherein, Mr. Aasen, CEO of Sonitor notes “Sonitor High Definition Ultrasound IPS was the original idea of our chairman Dr Ole B. Hovind and was developed in collaboration with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
and SINTEF, the Norwegian Foundation for scientific and Industrial Research. We still have strong links with these institutions.”
I agree with “a little fishy.”
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