RFID Solutions on Display at Military Health System Conference

The 2012 Military Health System Conference held this week at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland was a chance to see the newest innovations and military thinking regarding RFID. Xerafy displayed RFID tag solutions for healthcare including the XS tag in the booth of partner Motorola Solutions and I was impressed by the direction that the military is taking regarding RFID.

All branches of the Department of Defense are increasingly looking for ways to make more effective use of the assets they already have. Where are these assets? What is their state of readiness? When do they need to be replaced? These are just some of the questions that the DoD is dealing with. And increasingly, a combination of a real time location system (RTLS) combined with passive RFID is thought to be answer.

A top level medical CIO for IT programs at the conference commented that one of his biggest problems was tracking medical equipment throughout a hospital. He estimated that staff spent as much as 20 percent of their day looking for equipment and medicine.

With the need to not only track assets but also determine when those assets need to be replaced, reordered, or discarded (especially important for medicine) combining active and passive RFID to accurately track and locate these assets within a hospital will create an “intelligent” system that allows staff to maximize efficiencies and reduce down time.

The same RFID tag that will let the hospital staff know the location of equipment can also be a pointer to a database that has all the relevant information regarding the items state-of-readiness. It’s extremely easy to mistake a piece of equipment that has been properly maintained, cleaned, charged, and calibrated with one that has not. 

This year's MHS conference attracted over 3,000 attendees and I saw many exciting solutions on display. I look forward to the implementation of RFID in the military health system and expect that next year’s conference will be even bigger for the industry. I also want to say thanks to our friends at Motorola Solutions for showcasing our tag solutions.