Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
RFID background is introduced as well. In Section 15.3, the deficiencies of
emergency room workflow are depicted. In Section 15.4, the emergency room
problems are presented based on a real case. In Section 15.5, we discuss the
emergency room-radio freqency identification (ER-RFID) information sys-
tem workflow, and emergency room prototyping functions of monitoring
both patient's waiting time and medical treatment process.
15.2 Mobile Information System and RFID
15.2.1 Mobile Medical Care information System
Health care facilities have implemented mobile medical care information
system for managing organizational changes and challenges for years. For
health care facilities, significant mobile advances have been made in devices,
applications, and networking infrastructure, such as home care [6], a mobile
clinical support system [7], user interface service [8], medical knowledge
access [9], and mobile patient information [5,10,11] have been implemented
and improved medical care service.
Some health care facilities install information systems in the emergency
ambulance to enhance emergency prehospital care [12,13]. The Emergency
Services Act defined the system, which provides the arrangement of person-
nel, facilities, and equipment for the effective and coordinated delivery of
health care services under emergency conditions [14]. With the advantages
of mobile technology, more mobile medical care information systems are
implemented, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) providing dedi-
cated patient's information to physicians [15] and mobile physician order
entry system [16]. We consider a mobile medical care information system an
important role for managing clinical routine treatment. This study tends to
believe that both an information system and RFID should have the potential
to improve emergency room workflow and patient safety.
15.2.2 rFiD (radio Frequency identification)
The RFID tag is an integrated circuit (IC) chip with an antenna attached
by a printed conductor on a printed plastic sheet. The data can be stored
inside the IC and communicate or transmit by the antenna. The size of the
tag can be very small like a grain of rice or larger than a brick size. There are
two kinds of RFID tags, one is passive (no battery) and the other is active.
Passive tags are most popular for use. The RFID reader sends an energy field
to wake up the tag and send energy to enable the processing of storing or
sending data. The active tag has its own battery power. Data can be captured
by processing readers. Encryption algorithms can ensure data security and
