Hospital Buyer

A study that was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association notes that radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has the potential to disrupt medical equipment. The concern centers around the potential for electromagnetic interference (EMI).

The article was written by a research team from the Netherlands. The work completed was part of an effort spearheaded by the Dutch Ministry of Health over a year ago to examine RFID in Health Care. The effort considered use of this technology as means to track expensive medical equipment in the facility with over 1,000 beds, as well as blood products.

The group documented the incidence of EMI in a nonclinical environment considering equipment used in the critical care setting. Two different RFID systems were evaluated: a passive 868 MHz tag and interrogator and a 124 kHz battery-powered tag and reader. The effect of these was tested on 41 medical devices from different manufacturers including infusion pumps, fluid warmers, pacemaker programmers, defibrillators, and ventilators.

Three tests were completed with each of the devices. The first test considered the active tag and the interrogator, a second assessed the passive tag and reader, and the last evaluated an active tag and no reader. Testing assessed normal operations, operations after activation of RFID with devices within 200 cm, and finally evaluated when RFID equipment was on and within 50 cm.

Almost 125 tests were completed; 34 EMI events were documented. The mean range of distance between the devices and readers when hazardous incidents occurred was 25 cm. The majority, 22, were considered hazardous and would have caused a change in functioning of equipment and two required attention to equipment. The remaining ten events had limited influence on functioning of equipment. The hazardous incidents included shutdown and restart of ventilators and shutdown of pumps for syringes.

The researchers further compared the incidence of EMIs from RFID to EMIs related to mobile phones. The earlier generations of mobile phones were more likely than the newest iterations to cause EMIs. Data collected thus far indicates that the power used for devices is more likely the underlying cause of problems rather than the technology incorporated.

June 26, 2008 Related topics: New Technology & Innovation, Quality, Safety, Errors, IT & software