Kalorama Information, an independent market researcher, suggests that there will be nearly a billion-dollar market for RFID in the health care industry.
In its new report, “The Global Market for RFID in Health care,” Kalorama notes that RFID systems employed in health care settings may enable management to keep track of their staff’s compliance with policies, monitoring the rooms that enter and what inventory they use, and even how often they wash their hands.
“The RFID system is brutally honest,” Carlson said. “If a hospital is not in compliance, the data will soon alert management. Management can then decide how to improve individual or unit behavior” said Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information.
With an RFID hand washing compliance system, when a staff member approaches the soap dispenser, the dispenser reads the RFID-encoded badge. It records who is at the station and when activity is taking place.
Resurgent Medical and Versus Technology are among the vendors that make hand washing compliance systems. Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami is an example of a hospital that has implemented the system, and Kalorama believes that other health care entities will follow.
“Infection control is critical for health care systems as they try to reduce negative events, and RFID is one of the few technologies that can help.”
While staff tracking is among the most novel use of RFID, Kalorama believes the bulk of RFID sales in health care will be made for the sake of tracking patients for safety and billing purposes, inventory control and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
You can find the complete report here (purchase required). ![[end]](/resources/bullet/rfidnews-4.gif)
