Could RFID mean RIP for hospital patients?

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 26 June 2008 13:17

Your IT - Home IT

RFID tags have been promoted as a great way of keeping track of medical equipment. But a new study shows the tags can interfere with some types of equipment, leading to possibly life-threatening situations.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that "In a controlled nonclinical setting, RFID induced potentially hazardous incidents in medical devices. Implementation of RFID in the critical care environment should require on-site EMI tests and updates of international standards."

Both active and passive RFID tags were tested, and as you might expect, the active device caused interference in a larger number of cases.

The active tag caused 26 'incidents' of electromagnetic interference (EMI) in 41 tests, while the passive on only caused eight in the same number of tests.

Overall, there were 34 incidents in 123 tests. Worryingly, 22 of them were classified as 'hazardous'. Two were regarded as 'significant' and the remainder 'light'.

What does 'hazardous' mean? The authors reported events such as mechanical ventilators switching off, syringe pumps stopping, and the malfunction of external pacemakers.

The increasing use of RFID tags in a range of industries could pose a problem for the health sector. But what is going to be done about it? Please read on.