German hospital uses RFID for patient identification

Computing South Africa - Technology partners Siemens Business Services, Intel and Fujitsu Siemens Computers have launched a pilot project for patient identification using RFID (radio frequency identification) tags at Klinikum Saarbrucken Hospital in southern Germany.
Covering approximately 1,000 patients, the deployment of the latest IT and RFID technology aims to provide easier access to patient data and to help improve safety in drug dosage and administration.
In the future, patients admitted to the hospital will be given a wristband with an integrated RFID chip containing their patient number, which can be read by doctors and nurses using tablet PCs and PDAs. The identification is designed to enable authorized persons to access a protected database containing the patient's data, including details of any drugs to be administered and the correct dosages, online via a wireless LAN.
Unauthorized access is prevented using the latest encryption technology.
The project is based on an RFID implementation at the Jacobi Medical Center in New York. A particular focus of this pilot project is drug safety.
Faster, easier identification of patients is intended to help caregivers intensify the level of care, and to administer drugs easily and safely, since certain data and risk factors -- such as allergies, for example -- can be stored for each patient.
The overall technical equipment for the RFID solution includes notebooks from Fujitsu Siemens Computers for accessing the patient system, as well as Pocket Loox PDAs and Stylistic Tablet PCs with Intel Centrino. A WLAN infrastructure is also installed.
The patients taking part in the pilot project can call up their own medical information, including blood pressure levels, weight, and treatment or discharge dates, via information terminal, and can also find out about the diagnosed condition and the standard treatments, the companies said.

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This article was originally published by Computing South Africa. Story copyright 2006 Computing South Africa. All rights reserved.