Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has recently begun to receive increased interest from practitioners and academicians. This interest is driven by mandates from major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Metro Group, and the United States Department of Defense, in order to increase the efficiency and visibility of material and information flows in the supply chain. However, supply chain managers do not have a monopoly on the deployment of RFID. In this article, the authors discuss the potential benefits, the areas of applications, the implementation challenges, and the corresponding strategies of RFID in hospital environments.
Abstract:When lives are at stake, zero defects should be the established standard. This philosophy applies whether the federal government is attempting to protect the nation's drug supply from terrorist attack or in other healthcare environments where patient safety is critically important and where medical errors can result in death or serious injury. Therefore, any technology that can reduce the threat of terrorist attack, reduce medical errors, and increase patient safety should be thoroughly tested and evaluated. Radio frequency identification (RFID) is one technology that holds great promise. In this paper we discuss the potential benefits, the areas of applications, implementation challenges and corresponding strategies of RFID in the healthcare industry.
The authors identify the quality tools and methodologies most frequently used by quality-positioned hospitals versus nonquality hospitals. Northeastern U.S. hospitals in both groups received a brief, 12-question survey. The authors found that 93.75% of the quality hospitals and 81.25% of the nonquality hospitals used some form of process improvement methodologies. However, there were significant differences between the groups regarding the impact of quality improvement initiatives on patients. The findings indicate that in quality hospitals the use of quality improvement initiatives had a significantly greater positive impact on patient satisfaction and patient outcomes when compared to nonquality hospitals.
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