Evaluate the Use of Radio Frequency Identification (rfid) Technology

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Implementation of RFID technology in an organization

Currently, companies from all over the world are getting used to RFID technology for Supply Chain Management. However, some companies are only using RFID in some aspects, other companies are using RFID systems in every part of the supply chain process enabling them visibility from start to finish. Below is a company which is successfully using RFID in the supply chain management process (Cao, Jones & Sheng, 2014).

BJC HealthCare: A case of RFID Implementation

RFID is used for one step of the supply chain; it can still perform a significant effect on each part of it. Using RFID inventory management techniques such as smart cabinets, hospitals like BJC can have access into their inventory and know exactly how many are left and how many to order and when. 23% stock on hand is reduced due to use of RFID, which helps in buying less equipment that in turn helps to save equipments because of miss-counts (Bjc.org, 2017). The organization believed it could gain a real-time view of each item and its location, expiration date, and lot and serial numbers. Also RFID can track objects that are to be used for operations and devices that are to be placed inside patients (LeMaster & Reed, 2016).

RFID Technology’s Prospects in the Market Place

Major barriers to adoption include technological limitations, interference concerns, prohibitive costs, lack of global standards and privacy concerns. Better RFID systems with much low cost and privacy issues should be addressed and needed to increase acceptance of RFID in healthcare. This technology has many benefits, significant blocks exist. RFID implementations involve a number of issues outside the technology: government regulations, false promises, marketing problems, and a lack of standards (Rosenbaum, 2014). There is no standardization of software, hardware, network protocols. If able to unify the industry with standards, delivery on future promises, and convince of end users of this technology's benefits, then RFID's future looks favorable (Attaran, 2012).

Conclusion:-

Therefore from the discussion it can be concluded that in healthcare industry, there are many other advantages for example; reduce human errors, increase accuracy tasks and improve safety by not using expired devices or medicines. In coming years, use of RFID will be a requirement in the healthcare industry.

Although, the sole usage of RFID will not be able meet expectation of health care organizations if not hospitals update their IT infrastructure. RFID cannot be used by itself; health care organizations would face numerous problems. If we incorporate it with hospital information systems and electronic health records and support it by clinical decision support systems, it solves processes magically and reduces medical, medication and diagnosis errors.

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References

Attaran, M. (2012). Critical success factors and challenges of implementing RFID in supply chain management. Journal of supply chain and operations management, 10(1), 144-167.

Bjc.org. (2017). Retrieved 15 June 2017, from https://www.bjc.org/

Cao, Q., Jones, D. R., & Sheng, H. (2014). Contained nomadic information environments: technology, organization, and environment influences on adoption of hospital RFID patient tracking. Information & Management, 51(2), 225-239.

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Jia, X., Feng, Q., Fan, T., & Lei, Q. (2012, April). RFID technology and its applications in Internet of Things (IoT). In Consumer Electronics, Communications and Networks (CECNet), 2012 2nd International Conference on (pp. 1282-1285). IEEE.

LeMaster, N., & Reed, D. (2016). Interdependence in the healthcare industry: How a provider and a supplier collaborated to achieve mutual success. Management in Healthcare, 1(3), 217-223.

Rosenbaum, B. P. (2014). Radio frequency identification (RFID) in health care: privacy and security concerns limiting adoption. Journal of medical systems, 38(3), 19.

Singh, N. K., & Mahajan, P. (2014). Application of RFID technology in libraries. International Journal of Library and Information Studies, 4(2), 1-9.

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Wang, D., & Ip, W. H. (2013, May). Review on modeling and optimization problems about RFID technology and applications. In Control and Decision Conference (CCDC), 2013 25th Chinese (pp. 1258-1263). IEEE.

Yao, W., Chu, C. H., & Li, Z. (2012). The adoption and implementation of RFID technologies in healthcare: a literature review. Journal of medical systems, 36(6), 3507-3525.

Zhu, X., Mukhopadhyay, S. K., & Kurata, H. (2012). A review of RFID technology and its managerial applications in different industries. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 29(1), 152-167. Zhu, X., Mukhopadhyay, S. K., & Kurata, H. (2012). A review of RFID technology and its managerial applications in different industries. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 29(1), 152-167.