RFID in hospitals could pose risks!

RFID in hospitals could pose risks!

www.reuters.com

LONDON (Reuters) - Radio frequency identification chips (RFID) used to track and trace products could cause critical care medical devices such as pacemakers and ventilators to fail, Dutch researchers said on Tuesday.

Electromagnetic interference from the chips caused 22 problems that could endanger patients, ranging from completely stopping syringe pumps to switching off ventilators, said Erik Jan van Lieshout, a critical care physician at the Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam.

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Seems this would be a blow against RFID, and a victory for all who opposing it.

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Eh, Whats a few deaths...

You all need to be chipped.. Thats all..

Add to this the horric damage a person would experience if they has a chip in and had to have an MRI scan.

The chip would just rip right out of the body.

Having seen what a small piece of metal does as it exits a person (the person in question had a metallic tooth) I can assure you that its neither pleasent or life affirming.

Unfortunately, this is one of the instances in which RFID was probably an excellent option and was being used with the best of intentions. It was a really good way to keep track of all of the tools and instruments used during a surgery to make sure the cases of patients being stitched up with something forgotten inside them were minimized. I wouldn't really call this a victory for anyone, to be honest.

I work closely with a Biomedical Engineering unit in a hospital and frankly, the RFID chipping of equipment was rightly seen as a great benefit. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of medical equipment that need to be routinely calibrated and or maintained.

In the old days human error could lead to some being missed and uncalibrated or unmaintained equipment can be a threat to patients as well. RFID makes it possible to locate and properly log the status of every piece of equipment on a unit.

I hope they can find a solution to the interference issue. It would be a shame to lose the ability to reach that level of efficiency, simply because medical engineers designing pacemakers and such don't account for spurious electromagnetic events in the life of the patient or equipment.

reply to post by Maxmars


The patient and their medical needs come far far above some techies need to be able to track what work he has done and needs to do.

The patient is the overwhelming concern here, and if RFID tags interfer with any aspect of their care then it should be slung out the hospital.

As for theatres needing RFID tags to count up tools used in an operation - don't make me laugh.

An ODP or a scrub nurse counts them out, and counts them in. Each tray has an alloted amount of spaces for its equipment and a trained nurse / ODP is more than capable of this task, not some fancy RFID tag system.

RFD tags can go swing in the breeze on a hemp rope in my opinion.