The smart hospital is the main direction of hospital development at present. How to control and manage a large number of surgical tools, medicines and medical devices in hospitals is a headache. With the characteristics of fast access and no fear of pollution, RFID will be the ideal choice for managing many devices in hospitals. This article will show you the application of RFID in hospitals and Murata's RFID solution.
Traditional management of hospital devices is facing severe challenges
Hospitals operate in a very complicated environment, and mistakes are not allowed, because one mistake may lead to irreparable regret. Therefore, proper management of various appliances, medicines and devices in hospitals has become an important task in hospital operation.
At present, the tools commonly used to manage item numbers usually use barcodes and QR codes to manage. However, due to the size limitation, the existing methods are really limited to control a large number of small hospital devices. In addition, the hospital environment is relatively harsh, needs to face changes in temperature and pressure, and is easy to be contaminated with stains. In addition, some labels can no longer be tracked continuously after the products are sold. All of these aspects make the application of traditional methods in the hospital environment challenging.
Laws and regulations require identification management of surgical tools
First of all, let's take the management of surgical tools as an example. American regulations require that an UDI (Unique Device Identifier) be placed on every surgical tool after 2020. Europe has also followed this practice and plans to complete it by 2027. This is because surgical tools have their service life and need to avoid loss. Therefore, it is necessary to provide perfect product identification rules for the safe use and storage of all medical instruments for strict management. In addition, setting up surgical tools is time-consuming, even for skilled and experienced operators, so how to make the process more efficient will be a great challenge.
Although it is a global trend to force every surgical tool to be labeled with an ID number, because it is difficult to use manual records, it is impossible to accurately manage the use time, and it takes a lot of time and manpower to assemble and inspect the whole set of tools. If laser marking is used, it will easily cause rusting and staining of the instruments. If QR codes are used to read IDs one by one, it will be very time-consuming, which will cause problems for the management of surgical tools.
Using RFID to manage surgical tools has considerable advantages. It can improve the safety and efficiency in the surgical process because RFID tags can be used as the unique ID and record the service time and service life of surgical tools, which makes management easier. Using RFID can quickly read in batches, enabling operators to efficiently assemble and inspect the whole set of tools. In addition, RFID can record the use times of each tool to reduce excess inventory and record the use sequence to optimize the preparation of preoperative tools.
After using surgical tools, RFID can efficiently carry out inventory counting and time usage management, and batch reading and rapid management can be carried out. Even if the staff are contaminated with blood stains after the operation, they can read the information of RFID, so it is the ideal choice for the management of surgical tools.
Murata has introduced robust RFID tags that can be applied to metals and can be non-destructive during autoclaving. Murata can also help provide support for the reading environment and how/where to paste tags. It has an in-depth understanding of RF technology and can assist customers in the deployment of RFID tags. Staff can use hand-held readers to scan RFID tags to read information, and readers and antennas can be set without manual operation, so that tags can be easily read. The reading range of RFID tags is about 10cm to 1m, and the reading range may vary depending on the application environment.
RFID tags improve the management efficiency of drugs and medical devices
The use of RFID to authenticate medical drugs plays an important role in medical safety. In the past, because only the barcode on the package could be used for verification, it was impossible to ensure whether the drug information was correct for unpackaged products. Suppose RFID can be used for authentication of drug ampoules. In that case, medication errors can be prevented, drug dosage can be automatically recorded, and use times and validity periods can be checked to avoid errors and help reduce manpower in medical sites.
Using RFID to manage drugs, staff can automatically verify whether drugs are used within the specified use time and validity period to prevent them from exceeding the shelf life and use them within the specified use time. Even if drugs are taken out of the package, they can be identified, and information such as setting and prescription history can be recorded in the memory of each drug ampoule.
A large number of medical devices are also used in hospitals, and RFID authentication of medical devices will improve the efficiency and safety of medical care. RFID helps to correctly track the usage records of operation or cleaning, and helps to replace parts of medical devices, such as endoscopes, ultrasonic diagnosis, scalpels, ultrasonic coagulation and cutting devices. In addition, by automatically recording and storing RFID information, more efficient operations can be realized.
Using RFID tags can solve the dilemma of medical device management. For example, medical diagnostic devices such as endoscopes need to record the usage to prevent infection. In addition, operators need to ensure that the correct accessories are connected to the correct device. If this is done by manual identification using barcodes, it will consume a lot of time and manpower, and human errors such as lost records, lost usage times, unchecked expiration dates may occur, and there is no information about the use of medical devices.
Since RFID can store product information and usage history in rewritable memory (user memory, EPC memory) and set the password locking function, it can prevent information from being tampered with. Each IC has a unique and non-rewritable serial number, which can be used to verify product information. Near-field communication (NFC) makes the reading of readers and tags quite convenient. Non-contact reading can avoid the risk of label wear. Even if contaminated by chemicals, readers and tags can connection.
Murata's RFID tags are small and robust, embedded into the product and do not affect the product design. Near field communication can prevent accidental reading of unrelated parts around. Murata can support not only tag design, but also reader-writer integration and antenna design. RFID tags can be integrated with antennas and placed in various radio frequency reading and writing equipment or other consumables. Reading and writing operations are performed by connecting consumables to the host. RFID tags can be installed by adhesives, double-sided tapes, injection molding, etc. The reading range is about 20mm, and the reading range may vary depending on the environment. Murata can provide suggestions and support according to the usage of customers.
Miniature RFID tags that can be used on metal surfaces
For hospital applications, Murata offers compact, robust, and embeddable RFID tags that cover various kinds of products and applications and provide the feasibility of using data management in the whole supply chain. Murata's RFID micro tags have small and robust characteristics because Murata has expertise and technology of material development history, enabling Murata to provide ultra small and ultra robust RFID tags.
Taking Murata's LXTBKZMCMG-010 as an example, it can be used for metal product management applications. It adopts RFID standard ISO18000-63 and EPC Global Gen2v2, uses UHF frequency band (865-928MHz), adopts Impinj Monza R6P chip, EPC memory is 128 bits, user memory is 32 bits, the size is only 6.0 × 2.0 × 2.3 mm (length × width × height), and reading range is 1.5 m. It is RoHS compliant and can meet the application requirements of hospital device management.
Conclusion
RFID tags are small, robust, convenient and not affected by pollution. Compared with barcodes and QR codes, RFID tags are more suitable for managing complex hospital devices. Murata's micro RFID tags that can be used on metal surfaces will be the ideal choice for managing surgical tools, medicines and medical instruments and are worthy of being widely used in hospital environments to enhance the smart development of hospitals.