BUILDING SMART SAUDI HOSPITALS USING RFID
TECHNOLOGIES
Deena M Barakah and Ali Al Kinani
Department of Health Information, School of Public Health & Health Informatics,
King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences
Keywords: RFID Hospital Applications e-Health , Smart Hospitals in Saudi Arabia.
Abstract: With the more advancement in impeded computing, RFID technology are gradually begun to be a necessity
for improvement of medical service quality and patient safety. Nowadays, RFID helps optimizing business
processes in healthcare, improve the patients’ care, reduce operating costs, helps avoiding severe clinical
errors and reduce costly thefts or loss of facility equipments. For this , healthcare is predicted to be one the
major growth areas for RFID. However, a real challenge still exits. That is, how to incorporate RFID
successfully into medical practice, especially when relevant experience is limited. To investigate this issue,
this paper surveys how RFID emerging technology is currently used to build smart Saudi hospitals. It
describes in detail some of its interesting applications and its promising perspectives in several leading
Saudi health care facilities. The study is expected to have several important implications for developing
RFID applications in Saudi healthcare organizations.
1 INTRODUCTION
RFID is Short for radio frequency identification
device, and is used to describe various technologies
that use radio waves to automatically identify people
or objects. (Wang et al., 2006) (Juels, 2006). An
RFID system consists of an antenna and a
transceiver or RF tag which contains the RF
circuitry and information to be transmitted. The
radio waves reflected back from the RFID tag are
converted into digital information that can then be
passed on to computers that can analyze the data.
RFID tags can be passive tags with their data
permanently burned into the tag, or can be active
tags which are much more sophisticated and have
on-board battery for power to transmit their data
signal over a greater distance.
As RFID systems can be used just about
anywhere, and because RFID are constructed from
simple components, RFID is an ideal choice for
hospital healthcare system. Nowadays, it is widely
used in hospitals to provide real-time tracking of the
location of patients, doctors and nurses in the
hospital (Glover et al., 2006). In addition, the system
can be used to track the whereabouts of expensive
and critical equipment, and even to control access to
drugs, pediatrics, and other areas of the hospital that
are considered "restricted access" areas. RFID may
also be used in hospital stores to offer real-time
inventory tracking that allows hospital management
to monitor and control inventory supply at all times.
Particularly important will be item level tagging of
drugs and to reduce incidents such as surgical
sponges being “forgotten” inside the patient, or to
protect babies from kidnapping.
Due to its several advantages , many healthcare
organizations have deployed various RFID solutions
to enhance patient safety, increase operational
efficiency and optimize business workflow
processes.(Garfinkel and Rosenberg, 2006) (Hersh,
2004). At the same time the market for RFID tags
and systems in healthcare is predicted to skyrocket
from a hundred and twenty million in 2008 to about
two billion in 2018, according to IDTechEXa market
research firm focusing on RFID technology.
(marketresearch.com/) RFID is said by many in the
health industry to be the frontrunner technology for
automatic identification and data collection.
Considered optimal transportation and identification
tools, they have become a symbol for modern
hospitals. However, until there are more proven
examples of its applications within the health
industry and only after the benefits of RFID pay for
32
Al Kinani A. and Barakah D.
BUILDING SMART SAUDI HOSPITALS USING RFID TECHNOLOGIES.
DOI: 10.5220/0003267100320036
In Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations (ICISO 2010), page
ISBN: 978-989-8425-26-3
Copyright
c
2010 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
its relatively high implementation cost, RFID
systems may not reach their full potential. To
explore this issue, a project study is currently
conducted to investigate the integration of RFID into
the medical and health facilities at Saudi hospitals.
Our project aims toward investigating how RFID
can be deployed to meet the needs and practice of
medical services in Saudi hospitals. It also aims
toward investigation of some open problems to be
solved, and the barriers it has to overcome to be
fully integrated in eHealth applications in the Saudi
healthcare community.
For our case study, the following methodologies
are used:
Data collection from various sources such as
official records, Saudi health organization
proposals and other relevant materials
Interviews with major related participants,
including top managers of the hospitals, and
senior management information systems (MIS)
staff
Reviewing recent publications and brochures of
firms that manufacture or implement RFID
devices.
Visits to the sites where RFID devices were
installed
Establishing a case study references and reports
database
Throughout this research project, Several RFID
applications in Saudi hospitals were addressed.
These include:
- Tagging of new born children in hospital
- Assets tracking to help locate and manage
portable machines and other equipments.
- Reducing medical errors and enhancing
patient safety in clinical process such as
blood transfusion, etc
- Patients monitoring : to track patients
throughout the hospital facility
- To collect health-related data in daily
environments such as drug pedigree, to
overcome the problem of counterfeiting
Details of some these applications are discussed in
what follows.
2 RFID INFANT TRACKING AT
RIYADH ARMED FORCE
HOSPITAL
The Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital (RAFH) is a 770
bed hospital and located in Riyadh City, The capital
of Saudi Arabia. It’s the flagship of the Medical
Services Department of the Ministry of Defense and
Aviation (MODA). RAFH was officially opened
December 1978. RAFH provides a major portion of
the medical services for the military personnel and
their dependents in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
through a full range of diagnostic and management
facilities for patients ranging in age from the neonate
to the elderly. (rkh.med.sa/RMH.Website/English/).
The institution has a reputation, both in the
Middle East and in the West for the quality of
patient care provided, annual symposiums and for
the research papers published in most reputable
journals. RAFH administration requires that the
quality of services rendered and the general
operating standards of the center to meet the United
States Joint Commission on the Accreditation of
Health Care Organizations (JCAHO ) standards. In
addition to providing excellent care for patients, the
RAFH trains appropriately educated Saudi nationals
for administrative, professional and technical
positions through continuing education programs
and specific training program for Saudi Nationals.
A full range of clinical services are provided by
RAFH, including General Medicine, dermatology,
Hematology, Neurology, General Surgery,
Pediatrics, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery,
Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Oncology, Nephrology,
Plastic Surgery, ENT, Urology and Oral Surgery.
The hospital also houses a large laboratory service
and Nuclear Medicine Department.
Since 1981, other services are provided by
RAFH, including Obstetrics, Psychiatry,
Rehabilitation, Renal Dialysis and Extended Care.
To further advance the health care services provided
by the program, additional services are now fully
operational such as Bone Marrow Transplant Unit,
Artificial Heart Transplant Project, Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (MRI), In vitro Fertilization
Project and Linear Accelerator Project.
RAFH was among the early organization in the
kingdom to introduce radio frequency identification
technology in its health service. RAFH implanted
RFID solutions for tagging of new born children in
the hospital. Infant tracking is fatal to monitor newly
born babies' movements and match them with their
mothers. RAFH Riyadh Hospital has applied an
infant and pediatric RFID security system that alerts
staff members if a patient's ID tag is tampered with,
or if that tag approaches an exit. The system enables
employees to determine which patient triggered an
alarm. In order to select the best system, various
systems offered by different vendors, were
BUILDING SMART SAUDI HOSPITALS USING RFID TECHNOLOGIES
33
evaluated. The chosen system was superior in its
band-cutting technology—which transmits an alert if
a band is tampered with—and because RF
technologies offered includes training and follow-up
customer service.
The system consists of RF Technologies with
RFID interrogators deployed throughout the
women's and children's wing of the hospital, located
on the main hospital building. RFID tags are
deployed throughout the paediatric, obstetrics and
infant intensive-care units, as well as to sound alerts
if the tags approach an exit. The tag or bracelet is
attached shut on a patient in order to operate. If a
person attempts to remove the bracelet, thereby
breaking the connection, the tag immediately sends
an alert to area interrogators that transmit data to the
server. RFID Technologies software interprets that
information, enabling the system to sound an audible
alarm at nurses' stations. In future improvement of
the system, staff members throughout the wing can
view computer screens to see which zone the patient
is in, as well as that patient's identity.
Upon its application, the RFID system however,
had several false alarms caused by human error. For
instance, a patient may attempt to remove an infant's
tag to readjust the fitting, thereby setting off an
alarm. Such false alarms are treated by providing
more education by the staff to patients regarding
how to adjust the RFID fitting.
3 RFID APPLICATIONS AT
NATIONAL GUARD KING
ABDUL-AZIZ MEDICAL CITY
The Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) Health
Affairs supervises and administrates King Abdul-
Aziz Medical City, a 1025-bed hospital based in
Riyadh the capital and the Central Region of Saudi
Arabia. (hospitalsoup.com/listing/48187-national-
guard-king-abdulaziz-medical-city). This hospital
provides healthcare to SANG personnel, their
dependants and other eligible patients and also
provides academic opportunities, conducts research
and participates in industry and community service
programs in the health field.
SANG medical city hospital provide mainly
primary care, but offer tertiary care services as well,
and are fully equipped with highly sophisticated
technology.(hospitalsoup.com/listing/
48187-national-guard-king-abdulaziz-medical-city)
It includes new state-of-the art developments
such as cardiac and liver center; 21 bed Intensive
Care Unit (ICU), long term care/ rehabilitation,
outpatient dental service , emergency care, surgical
and medical wards, and trauma centers. Other
adult and pediatric services provided include:
Obstetrics and Gynecology (Labor and Delivery,
Oncology, Antenatal and Post Partum wards);
Pediatric Oncology and Pediatric ICU, Neonatal
ICU, Operating Rooms, and Ambulatory Care
Center. RAFH was the first organization in the
kingdom to introduce radio frequency identification
technology in its health service. RAFH implanted
RFID solutions for tagging of new born children in
the hospital. The system implementation is similar to
the one previously described at RAFH. Besides,
SANG has adapted active RFID to help locate and
manage portable devices and other equipments at
King Abdul-Aziz Medical City Cardiac Center.
Details of this follows.
3.1 Assets tracking at National Guard
King Abdul-aziz Medical City
It is very common for medical instrument to
disappear in hospitals. RFID solution is
implemented to identify various small expensive
devices at SANG center. The RFID vendor and
solutions provider, worked with the SANG hospital
to set up an RFID portal in its hallway, through
which all devices leave Cardiac Center are moved,
to other hospital sections. Now, if a tagged device is
pushed through the portal, it detects the tag and
sounds an alarm. At the same time, the portal
captures the tag reads and communicates that
information, to the Healthcare server application,
which automatically alerts the appropriate personnel.
It is planned that RFID will also be used in future
to keep tags on approximately hundreds of SANG
hospitals expensive medical devices, such as
infusion pumps, and expensive surgical probes that
worth thousands of Saudi Riyals and can by mistake
end up in the trash.
According to a SANG Health Affairs key
official, SANG also plans to expand its use of RFID.
The plan is to enhance RFID solutions further in
Riyadh hospital, to upgrade IT infrastructure in all
of SANG hospitals, and then moves RFID
implementations to other SANG hospitals
throughout the Saudi Kingdom.
ICISO 2010 - International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations
34
4 PATIENTS MONITORING AT
KING FAISAL SPECIALIZED
HOSPITAL
(BPORTAL.KFSHRC.EDU.SA)
King Faisal specialized Hospital and research center
(KFSH&RC) which is multi-entity tertiary care
hospital and one of the leading highly specialized
healthcare institutions in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, has rolled out radio frequency identification
technology to track hundreds patients files
throughout its facility. The hospital is also planning
to expand the system to include active RFID tag for
real-time patient tracking, in order to remove
inefficiency associated with bed allocation and inter-
departmental communication, and improve patients'
access for admission. Tens of smart node RFID
interrogators will be deployed throughout the
hospital, and Smart Tags will be added to patients'
identification bracelets in order to track those
individuals as they moved around the hospital
facility. By knowing the real-time location of a
patient, KFSH hospitals will be able to embrace
other features and make more productive use of
radio frequency identification, such as improvement
of patient blood-handling process, monitoring
patients' body temperatures, and for real time
tracking and recording a patient's vital signs.
Blood transfusion errors have long been a source
of concern for KFSHRC hospital staff as the blood-
handling process contains a number of manual steps,
which can introduce human error.
To reduce blood-handling errors at King Faisal
Specialized Hospital, the hospital is planning to
introduce a program to use (RFID) technologies
verification to address the sources of human and
systems error in the blood transfusion process.
Working with their technology partners, the program
will be implemented at the 894-bed multi-facility
Riyadh Hospital, where each year hundreds of blood
transfusions are delivered.
According to a KFSH head of IT department, the
RFID system, after being fully implemented, is
expected to provide a number of benefits, from
increased staff efficiency to improved
communication, faster bed turnover and reduced
patient waiting times.
5 PROJECT INITIAL FINDINGS
The early findings of this research showed that
Infant tracking at RAFH Riyadh hospital was very
effective in monitoring newly born babies'
movements and match them with their mothers.
Ongoing monitoring will be carried out to assess
data for this important RFID application over a
longer time period.
The Assets tracking at National Guard King
Abdul-Aziz medical City has already earned its
keep. The RFID server successfully tracked a variety
of expensive medical devices that got moved around
or misplaced.
The patient files track throughout KFSH&RC
facility, was also very successful and was able to
effectively locate them immediately when required.
Since its application, very few files were missed.
Upon completion, this research project is
expected to have several important findings for
implementation RFID applications in Saudi
healthcare organizations. It will help to in finding
answers to important issues arising from this
implementation, including:
1. Penetration rate of RFID in Saudi hospitals
2. Evaluation of acceptance and resistance level of
RFID from medical staff and health managers
3. Analysis of Patients users perceptions and
behavior towards RFID
4. The influential factors in the decision-making of
RFID adoption for Saudi healthcare
organizations.
5. Security applications related to information
stored in the RFID smart cards. (Juels, 2006).
6. Level of automation of Saudi hospitals clinical
analysis laboratories using RFID (Florentino et
al., 2008).
6 CONCLUSIONS
RFID experience a fast development and
implementation and Saudi healthcare is predicted to
be one of its major growth areas. In this paper, we
surveyed several applications of RFID in Saudi
health care facilities that helped in saving costs and
resulted improvement of these hospitals patients
safety and privacy.
The paper describes how this emerging
technology are used in leading Saudi hospitals to
build a smart infant tracking, for assets tracking
application and the plan to implement RFID for
real-time patient tracking and reduction of clinical
errors.
Based on our findings, it can be easily
concluded that RFID helps optimizing business
processes in Saudi healthcare and improved its
patient safety.
BUILDING SMART SAUDI HOSPITALS USING RFID TECHNOLOGIES
35
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