Study Shows Increasing RFID Adoption By Healthcare Organizations
Large healthcare organizations are increasingly investing in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies to improve care delivery and workflow processes according to an RFID end-user market study conducted by Spyglass Consulting group, a market intelligence and consultancy firm focusing on the healthcare-information technology sector.
The study centered around the present state of RFID adoption by large healthcare organizations in the United States. About 100 healthcare professionals working in pharmacy, clinical engineering, materials management, laboratory and medical/nursing informatics were surveyed to identify the critical needs and requirements for RFID. The interviews focused on inefficiencies in the existing workflows, current usage of wireless and RFID solutions, and the potential for deploying RFID in the future.
The telephonic interviews, spread over three months, commenced in March 2008. The study follows a similar one conducted by Spyglass in August 2005. The current study reflects a 204% increase in adoption and investment in RFID solutions since 2005.
The study revealed key trends related to the RFID investment, value proposition and adoption. Departmental heads and business-line managers were mostly open to investing in RFID for improving business processes, while hospital administrators were more reluctant towards enterprise-wide deployments, unless the clinical, financial and operational efficacy of these solutions demonstrated value implications across the organization.
The study also highlights the tremendous value offered by RFID solutions, through its advanced capabilities in automatically tracking high-value assets, patients and medical staff, towards increasing operational efficiency, optimizing patient interactions, and streamlining workflow processes throughout the organization. Additionally, passive RFID solutions seem to be the technology of choice for specific applications within the organization like inventory management, patient identification and quality assurance. According to Gregg Malkary, Managing Director of Spyglass Consulting Group, larger organizations are more likely to make RFID investments than smaller hospitals as they have a larger area under their purview making it difficult to manually track things. A better understanding of the RFID technology and its benefits in healthcare is also seen as a major driver for its adoption.
According to a report by Gartner Inc. published earlier this year, worldwide RFID revenue was projected to be $1.2 billion in 2008, a 30.9% increase from 2007 ($917.3 million). The report forecasts that by 2012, the worldwide RFID revenue would grow to a total of $3.5 billion. The current findings by Spyglass, reflect the general trend of increased RFID adoption across industries.
SOURCE: HealthNews