Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
RFID Systems can be Easily Disrupted
respective signals are also sent back to the reader
at the same time; the reader however is unable to
differentiate these signals, thereby resulting in tag
collisions which confuse the reader.
The RFID systems make use of the electromagnetic
spectrum (like Wi-Fi networks or cell phones);
they are relatively easy to jam using energy at
the right frequency. Although this would only be
an inconvenience for consumers in stores (longer
waiting times in checkout queues), it could prove
disastrous in other environments where RFID is
used more and more like in hospitals or in military.
Besides, active RFID tags can be repeatedly inter-
rogated with an aim to wear their battery down,
thereby disrupting the system.
MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER
Issues Faced by Healthcare
The primary goal of healthcare is to be able to
deliver quality healthcare services at anytime
to anyone. Improvements in technology have
enabled the feasibility of this vision. However,
healthcare has a few concerns which it needs to
overcome in order to provide excellent patient
care. The key issues faced by many healthcare
organizations include: ensuring patient's safety
and quality service; high number of errors that
lead to injuries and fatalities; concerns over having
the right supply in inventory in right quantities;
limited visibility into mobile assets resulting in
inefficiencies and added costs and also limited vis-
ibility into the status of specimens and controlled
substances. Hospitals are looking into technologies
that can increase the visibility across all segments
including mobile assets (Charts, infusion pumps,
defibrillators, etc.), inventory (pharmaceuticals,
supplies for specialized procedures, high valued
inventory and consignment inventory), specimens
and controlled substances (blood, urine, morphine,
biological samples) and people (patients, contrac-
tors, nurses, doctors) (Kamel & Liang, 2009, p.5).
Theft of supplies and equipment leave the
hospitals, pharmacies, care centers and nurs-
ing homes crippled. Limited asset visibility
has increased operational inefficiencies, costs,
insurance liabilities and shrinkage. Recent stud-
ies have found that due to lack of asset visibility,
hospitals over-procure 20-30% of their mobile
assets; the nursing staff spends about 10-30% of
their time looking for equipment and supplies
and also regular servicing of an item takes up
to 8 hours since 75% of the maintenance time is
RFID Reader Collision
These reader collisions occur when the signals
from two or more readers overlap each other. The
tag is then unable to respond to the simultaneous
queries made by the readers. Such occurrences
of reader collision cause two different problems:
•
Signal interference which happens when
the RF fields of two or more readers may
overlap or interfere. This can be solved by
programming the readers to read at frac-
tionally different times. However, it can
still result in the same tag being read twice.
•
Multiple reads of the same tag wherein the
same tag is read one time by each of the
overlapping readers. This can be solved by
programming the RFID system to make
sure that a given tag is read only once in
a session.
Therefore, the system must be carefully set in
order to avoid such problems.
RFID Tag Collision
Tag collisions occur when too many tags are
present in a small area and all of them need to be
read together in the same RF filed. When multiple
tags are read by a reader simultaneously, their
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