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Enabling RFID technology for healthcare: application, architecture, and challenges

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Abstract

Information processing is the cornerstone of patient safety and healthcare quality. In the current healthcare system, critical gaps exist in the collection of vital information from patients and transferring that information to healthcare providers. The information collection problems are particularly challenged in patients lacking verbal communication or under other serious conditions. Information handover among medical staff can also introduce human errors which may place a patient’s health and life at risk. Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a kind of electronic identification technology that is becoming widely deployed. RFID technology allows crucial personal information to be saved in a low-cost chip attached to the patient. This innovative technology has tremendous potential to improve patient healthcare quality by eliminating human errors and ambiguity presented during patient-physician and physician-physician interactions.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the NSFC No. 61075010, and National key technology supporting program under Grant No. 2011BAI12B05.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Long Hu, Dung Mau Ong & Enmin Song

  2. School of Computer, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Xuan Zhu

  3. School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, 100044, China

    Qiang Liu

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  1. Long Hu
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  2. Dung Mau Ong
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  4. Qiang Liu
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Correspondence to Xuan Zhu.

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Hu, L., Ong, D.M., Zhu, X. et al. Enabling RFID technology for healthcare: application, architecture, and challenges. Telecommun Syst 58, 259–271 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-014-9871-x

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