Safety


In general, members of a modern society develop personal attachments and endeavor to ensure the safety of people close to them. In the business world, there are monetary benefits associated with providing safe environments for employees and customers. For example, a hospital can secure lower malpractice insurance rates if it can demonstrate a decrease in the number of cases where patients receive the wrong medication. A number of applications use RFID technology to help create safer working conditions and environments while also providing peace of mind. Some of the popular ones are outlined here.

People Monitoring

What is it?

The capability to know a person's whereabouts and monitor his or her movements has a number of significant benefits. Although unauthorized people monitoring can be a violation of privacy rights, there are several applications of consented monitoring, especially for seniors, which can be helpful and potentially life saving.

Some amusement parks around the world offer a service allowing parents to track their children and pinpoint their location using RFID bracelets. For an illustration of this application, see Figure 1.2. In one instance, children are outfitted with active RFID bracelets that can be tracked by strategically located readers throughout the park. The parents are also outfitted with corresponding RFID tags. Monitoring stations allow parents to validate their identity using their RFID tags and then give them exclusive permission to locate only their child. After the child's location is identified in the park, strategically located cameras zoom in to reveal the child's precise location and status.

Figure 1.2. Children Monitored in an Amusement Park Using RFID


In yet another application, the location and movement of elderly or disabled persons can be monitored and acted upon. For example, to ensure that Alzheimer's patients living in a care facility do not leave their rooms without keys, door handles can be outfitted with RFID readers that can detect the absence of an RFID tagged room key and alert the patient and/or a caregiver via any combination of alarm types.

Why use it?

The two significant benefits of tracking potentially vulnerable loved ones revolve around real-time safety and on-demand peace of mind. Additionally, the capability to monitor the whereabouts and movements of children, elderly, or disabled persons can save a considerable amount of time and money by reducing the amount of dedicated personal care that might otherwise be required.

Patient Care

What is it?

RFID can create a safer and more comfortable environment for hospital patients in many different ways. One of the more common uses is to put RFID tagged bracelets on newborns in the maternity ward to ensure they are always matched with their mothers and that they are not being transported off the premises without authorization. An audible alarm is activated if the RFID bracelet is cut, as if to be removed without authorization.

Bracelet tagging can have more sophisticated uses that can uniquely identify a patient and her prescribed medication. This mobile patient database can contain additional information such as a patient's blood type, allergies, and other important health information. New data that might include vital statistics or the date of last physician visit can be written onto the tag in real-time, thereby giving doctors and nurses instant and accurate access to patient data. See Figure 1.3 for an illustrative example of this application.

Figure 1.3. A Patient-Monitoring Application Using RFID


Why use it?

Patient health, safety, and comfort are major concerns for hospitals. Although physicians, nurses, and other staff take primary responsibility for safety, RFID technology enables a more efficient care process. Simultaneously, it increases patient satisfaction while decreasing possibilities for errors caused by the "separation" of information from a patient. Apart from the obvious benefits of patient safety and good reputation, decreased patient/data error rates can help to reduce malpractice claims and industry insurance rates.

Environment Sensing and Monitoring

What is it?

RFID technology can be integrated with devices that sense and monitor various environmental conditions. Poultry and other meat-related supply chains always present a challenge for the accurate monitoring of temperature ranges. These perishables must be closely monitored to ensure that spoilage does not occur. RFID technology addresses this challenge with specially outfitted temperature sensors that are applied to meat packaging to monitor temperatures at all times. The sensors can be programmed to detect, record, and alert others about any breach of a predefined temperature threshold. The same technology can be used in clinical settings to monitor the temperature of donated blood and body organs during transport. Safety benefits could also result from RFID tags with bacterial sensors that measure and report data regarding potential contamination of food products.

Another area where sensing devices provide useful functionality is tamper detection of safety-critical products such as non-prescription drugs and cosmetics. Special sensors with RFID tags can detect and record any package that has been tampered with. This allows tamper checking of multiple packages of the product that may be contained in sealed cases or pallets while sidestepping time-consuming, and thus costly, processes of checking each individual item. Additionally, the integrity of the product can be monitored as it moves through the supply chain to help isolate and identify possible tampering sources.

Sensing devices are also integrated with RFID technology to monitor and report tire pressure in vehicles. An air pressure sensor monitors and records the tire pressure on an RFID tag, which can then be queried by the car's onboard reader and any irregularities reported to the driver through the vehicle's dashboard instrumentation. See Figure 1.4 for an illustrative example of this application.

Figure 1.4. Tire Pressure Monitoring Using RFID


Why use it?

Sensors with RFID technology are fast becoming a common tool to help measure and report various environmental conditions that affect our everyday lives. Monitoring and exception reporting has several advantages. For the consumer, it creates unprecedented peace of mind given an immense number of changing environmental variables that can pose safety risks in our daily lives. For the business, it provides a better safety control mechanism with the added benefits of lowering the risk of liability and increasing customer satisfaction and confidence.



RFID Field Guide(c) Deploying Radio Frequency Identification Systems
RFID Field Guide: Deploying Radio Frequency Identification Systems
ISBN: 0131853554
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 112

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net