Prevent Blood Mismatch with RFID

Filed in archive Healthcare on October 3, 2006

I believe that the biggest sin in the world would be to play with someone's life. This is what is happening at various hospitals across the globe as people engaged in the medical field continue to make error while matching blood groups and some studies have stated that since the past two decades the human error rates for blood transfusion has not shown improvement.

In order to deal with this problem Ospendale Maggiore in Italy has been utilizing an RFID based system for matching patients and blood bags which ensures that the right blood is administered to the right person. The reasons which prompted the hospital to move towards RFID were that it has faster reading and writing capabilities, offers large data storage capacity and above all is user friendly. The biggest benefit for the hospital has been that it has witnessed higher level of acceptance from both clinical unit operators and blood service operators.

This is how the system works. An RFID based electronic seal known as MediLock is attached to blood bags and is only unlocked when a multifunctional wireless handheld device communicates the identity of the patient who receives the blood. The main purpose behind this is to identify every item utilized in the transfusion process.

Certainly with this process blood mismatch could be controlled and a number of lives could be saved. Now can we call it RFID, the savior?