FREE Health Data Management Site Registration

Sign up today and access the leading source of Health Care I.T. information on the Web.
Your FREE site registration entitles you to:

Free Health Data Management e-newsletter
 
Search more than 12,000 articles
 
Access Web Seminars on a host of I.T. topics
 
White Papers and Industry Research that provide valuable insights on a variety of technologies and implementation issues
 
Podcasts, updates on industry events, and much more!

 
   

RFID and Wi-Fi Square Off


By Beckie Kelly Schuerenberg, Senior Editor May 2007
Spartanburg (S.C.) Regional Hospital used to lose track of its 550 infusion pumps so often that last year the organization's nursing CIO wanted to spend $50,000 to replace 54 of them that were on-site but simply couldn't be found.

Hospital executives understandably didn't want to approve funding for equipment the hospital already had. Instead, they looked into purchasing a radio frequency identification-based tracking system to keep tabs on the infusion pumps.

The system would have required Spartanburg to install a radio frequency network across its facilities to support the technology. The hospital decided that the installation would have been too costly and time-consuming, says Jesse White, manager of network infrastructure.

A separate RFID network also would have been difficult to maintain since Spartanburg needed to dedicate considerable I.T. resources to manage its 802.11b wireless network, which it's had for eight years, he adds.

"A separate RFID network would have required a heck of a lot of maintenance-and finding the resources to do so also would have been difficult," he says.

But the organization still needed to get a better handle on its infusion pumps. So Spartanburg decided to become an alpha site for a technology designed to provide the same tracking capabilities using a Wi-Fi network.

Over the past few years, vendors have begun offering RFID-over-Wi-Fi tracking systems as an alternative for health care organizations that don't want to purchase, install and maintain a separate active RFID network for tracking assets, patients or staff. Both conventional active RFID tracking systems and the newer RFID-over-Wi-Fi applications use tags attached to supplies, wristbands or badges that transmit location data via wireless signals to access points connected to an automated system. But the systems differ in the type of wireless signals they use.

RFID-over-Wi-Fi tags emit wireless signals within the 2.4-2.5 GHz radio frequency used by Wi-Fi network technology, which enable the systems to be used on 802.11 wireless networks, which have become commonplace.

Active RFID tags, however, emit signals within a lower part of the frequency spectrum. As a result, active RFID tracking applications require a separate network infrastructure that can support the signals.

Hospitals that already have a Wi-Fi network don't have to implement and maintain a separate network for RFID-over-Wi-Fi tracking applications, which significantly reduces the total cost of ownership. What's more, hospitals that implement a tracking system on their existing Wi-Fi network can get even more savings down the road because they won't have to purchase additional access points if they want to expand a limited deployment of the application enterprisewide.

"CIOs who've already made an investment in 802.11b wireless networks can really leverage that infrastructure for RFID-over-Wi-Fi tracking applications," says Gregg Malkary, managing director at Spyglass Consulting Group, Menlo Park, Calif. "It makes more financial sense and extends the return on investment on the wireless network when compared with putting in a separate network for tracking. It's also easier to maintain a single infrastructure for everything."

Some downfalls

Though RFID-over-Wi-Fi tracking systems can offer many advantages, they do have some limitations that are preventing them from completely trumping active RFID.

For example, while these systems can eliminate the expense of using a separate network for automated tracking, their tags often cost $50 or more each, as opposed to $10 to $15 each for active RFID tags. So for hospitals needing to track hundreds of items, the total cost of an RFID-over-Wi-Fi system often can be as much or more than an active RFID system.

Also, Wi-Fi access points are omnidirectional, meaning that when they detect a signal, they can't determine from which direction it's coming. That could pose a problem if a Wi-Fi tracking system displays that a patient is 30 feet from an access point, but it can't identify if they are 30 feet above or below it, which in a hospital could span the difference of three floors. Most active RFID readers, however, use proprietary algorithms to more accurately detect the three-dimensional location of a signal they receive-a process called triangulation-and as a result, can communicate location at a more granular level than most RFID-over-Wi-Fi systems.

More Special Report Articles

Mobile Tech Archive
Hospitals Archive
Group Practices Archive

I.T. Spotlights