RFID in the Healthcare Sector
The idea of RFID technology is one of the emerging issues in the healthcare industry. Rosenbaum (2014) notes that RFID suggests that by using of resources efficiently, health workers spend minimal time finding medical supplies and attending to patients. Integration of RFID in the healthcare information systems as well as electronic health records and supporting it by the use of clinical decision support system helps to facilitate processes and reduce medication, medical, and diagnosis errors. However, Stephanie (2013) records less than ten percent of the hospitals are using RFID tools in ensuring patient safety, time-saving, and access control.
Currently, hospital staffs are spending much time running around trying to locate medical supplies in the hospital (Stephanie, 2013). Moreover, much time is spent with one patient during assessment and diagnosis. According to Oranje-Nassau et al. (2010), human-made errors make patients in health care facilities to be prone to certain infectious diseases due to the use of infected equipment. The adoption of RFID in the hospitals has been slow since the payback is less instantly visible than what majority of the healthcare industries prefer (Oranje-Nassau et al., 2010).
Ajami and Rajabzadeh (2013) assert that the application of RFID technology in the health industry can offer considerable benefits in ensuring patient safety as well as improving the supply chain competence. The nurses and doctors’ negligence are eliminated by the RFID when serving patients in regard to incorrect medications and foods (Ajami, & Rajabzadeh, 2013). Furthermore, the RFID tools prevent the retention of sponges, surgical instruments and towels in patients being operated. The main efforts of the hospitals are focused on saving lives. Tracking supplies, keeping records of most patients, and controlling most hospital operations can easily be enhanced through RFID.
Problem Statement
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) has been a changing phenomenon healthcare sector (Rosenbaum, 2014). Currently, hospital staffs are spending running around trying to locate medical supplies in the hospital and ensure security of patients (Stephanie, 2013). However, the adoption of RFID in the hospitals has been slow since the payback is less instantly visible than what majority of the healthcare industries prefer (The general IT problem is that few hospitals and other health care centers have adopted RFID into their systems and those that have acknowledged its advantages are yet to acknowledge its usefulness (Ajami, & Rajabzadeh, 2013). The specific IT problem is that most technical departments in hospitals lack enough capacity to adopt RFID as a major technological development in helping better service delivery in the sector.
Moreover, Rosenbaum (2014) notes that issues on the importance of fostering a change in the way challenges that affect RFID are handled will also be addressed in the paper. Since the study will mainly use previous research, case studies on RFID will act as a guide to establish the extent to which RFID has managed to succeed in offering the best services and changing lives of many people today (Stephanie, 2013). studies have also taken a qualitative format, this research will not be an exception and will hence work to establish whether a greater impact can easily be inferred from previous developments. platform for a social change, I find that improved healthcare delivery will be the main result. Apart from studies on what other scholars have achieved, the research will also use interviews to foster a gain on information on this vital subject. In the end, the research will manage to explain how RFID can be properly enhanced to help give an understanding on how RFID can revolutionize the experiences that patients get in their daily endeavors.
RFID can be sued in the healthcare sector to enhance utilization of resources and reduce time wastages when finding medical supplies and attending the patients. As such, the research requires someone who is familiar with different health care systems and also an individual with sufficient knowledge of working principles and use of RFID technology in the health sector (Yin, 2013). Bearing the nature of the research, the researcher considered “minimal risk” requirements for this assignment to identify a medical doctor and a security engineer for the interview. They both play a significant role in understanding the role of RFID in the healthcare that is essential for successful completion of the study.
Telemedicine is expected to take the lead in future. One of the challenges that are expected with this technology is collecting the patient data and transmitting it to the doctors who are in a different location. As such, RFID technology will play a significant role in helping information transmission from the medical doctors to the patients and vice versa. Telemedicine is not a new field; it is only that its popularity is expected to increase, and this means that there is still a lot of work that has to be done to experience the full potential of telemedicine (Ajami & Rajabzadeh, 2013). Preliminarily, choosing a medical doctor in this research is critical in expounding the reality of the current medical field and revealing the popularity of RFID technological knowledge. The medical doctor will be crucial in the interview since he will explain previous encounters with RFID technology and their perception of its roles such as enhancing responsible behavior and reducing costs of the services.
One of the most crucial roles of RFID in the healthcare industry is improving asset tracking. Some RFID solutions help the medical doctors trace the patients and monitor their progress. Also, there is the importance of integrating RFID technology into the hospital’s information systems and its electronic health records. The security engineer will play a significant role in making these roles clear. The security engineer working in the hospital set-up can also use low-latency wireless sensor network to improve security in different departments of the hospital. The systems can also be customized to ensure that the patients can easily use them to alert the doctors when they encounter any form of distress; the tags could also include fall sensors that can help in monitoring of the patients remotely.
A security engineer working in this environment has a comprehensive understanding of different applications of RFID to help monitor activities carried out by target population in the hospital. The security engineers are responsible for technological tracking products in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. Since RFID leverages real-time data, it can be used easily to identify outliers in quality and product distribution.
As such, the security engineer can provide insights on the use of RFID in identifying the contaminators that result in pulling out the drug manufacturing or distribution hence preventing patient consumption (Wamba, 2012). The security engineer will provide information on the use of RFID to enable compliance for the people working in the pharmaceutical industry by maintaining and sharing information on product movement in all the lifespan of a drug.
Both professionals will provide insights on how the use of RFID technology helps save billions in cost in addition to saving lives in medical and healthcare industry. They will show how the RFID technologies are utilized in the healthcare system to make procedures and processes efficient for both the administrators, healthcare practitioners and the patient. Therefore, interviewing these professionals will greatly benefit the study.
RFID continues to play an important role in the IT sector today. As more people become techno-savvy, the role of technology in transforming the way experiences in various sectors cannot go unnoticed. sector. RFID has continued to become a major technology in enhancing service delivery in many sectors. While its role has not been tapped, understanding the major attributes of RFID is a major breakthrough for the healthcare sector. Quality service delivery continues to be a major issue in the sector and a formula to guarantee that more people will get better access to affordable and dependable healthcare provides hope to ending most of the challenges and difficulties that the sector has faced.
Rosenbaum (2014) postulate that RFID suggests that effective use of available resources enables health workers to spend minimal time attending to patients and finding medical supplies. In addition, the importance of using RFID in enhancing service delivery from tracking of medical supplies to keeping track of patients has become a major study focus in the field (Stephanie, 2013). received in hospitals continues to be a major challenge today. However, despite the number of researches in the same field, limited research has been done on the ability of RFID to enhance care and influence change in the sector (Oranje-Nassau et al., 2010).
A List of Research Questions that will inform the Research Design
Research Questions
According to Andrews (2003) any research without good research questions faces a high risk of not meeting its intended goals. A research question acts as a major guideline that helps in ensuring that the research meets its objectives. Any researcher would look at their research question and identify what exactly to look for in their study. In essence, research questions act as a thin line between the theoretical idea of a research and its actualization. Therefore, this research will involve around the use of RFID in most healthcare institutions.
Main Research Question
Given that the study analyses the impact of RFID in the healthcare sector, it is paramount that the main research question revolve around the impact of RFID in the sector and how to manage its efficiency. Therefore, the following research question will be extremely useful in conducting the research and effectively harnessing the whole plan to meet desired output and standards. Therefore, the main research question is:
Data will be collected by conducting an interview. The following question will be used to assess the use of RFID in the participants’ health centers:
- What are the most used resources in RFID technology?
- Which departments in the healthcare sector lead in the utilization of RFID technologies?
- What are the perceptions of employees on the use of RFID technologies?
Interview Questions
- What equipment does your company have in the implementation of RFID?
- Are all departments well equipped with RFID systems?
- Does the technology department organize maintenance sessions for all RFID systems in each department?
- Do employees know anything about RFID and its use in the hospital?
- What do employees say about the benefits and impacts of RFID in the hospital?
The choice of questions is meant to establish the extent that RFID has been used in the sector. The questions are meant to help establish the familiarity of RFID among most health institutions. The completion of the study will ascertain the extent of the use of RFID in hospitals and its impact in security and service delivery to patients.
Nature of the Study
Quantitative research according to enables most researchers to use an inferential based statistics to determine whether there is a presence of correlation between two or more variables. However, Yin (2013) identifies that at times, a qualitative approach would be equally of great importance in any study. As such, a distinct and careful approach to analysis of data and its presentation presents facts that underline a study in a better manner as compared to a quantitative one especially when the data involved is non-numeric in nature. researchers are primarily seeking to understand how one thing affects the other. Nonetheless, this research could also seek to show that there is indeed a relationship between efficiency in hospitals and the use of RFIDs by comparing hospitals using the system and those that do not. managed to stand out as a major success factor for businesses and healthcare sectors around the world despite it being a new technology. As such, using an experimental approach would not yield any results making a qualitative approach with interviews and evaluation of case studies the best viable option.
Theoretical/Conceptual Framework
Therefore, the first step would be to analyze the vision, goals and missions of the research and the use of RFID. Secondly, the study will identify the organizational strategies necessary for the implementation of RFID systems. Moreover technological factors from frequencies to tagging and necessary framework for implementation will also be necessary. RFID requires a great input in terms of finances and proper funding is thus needed for its successful implementation (Rosenbaum, 2014). Finally, the level of knowhow in the human resource sector will play a major role in enhancing efficiency and promoting its successful implementation.
Possible Types and Sources of Information or Data
The nature of the study warrants that the information collected meets a qualitative level. Since this data mainly requires that the researcher conducts interviews and examine research from previous studies, it is paramount that the researcher examines the interviews conducted to determine whether the results meet the postulated or planned format. As such, there is a need to have a comprehensive interview that would cater for both the internal operations of RFID and in other areas. Nonetheless, the interview information will help in creation of codes necessary for the formal success of research. Interviews present codes and codes on the other hand give a concise output in terms of themes. Moreover, with themes in place, most of the research questions can easily be answered from those in the field.
Moreover, the research will also evaluate other previous research that includes case studies in the field. While a concise understanding of this information is needed for the success of the project, picking out the best case studies remains the hardest task to tackle. Most people who have studied on RFID will need to always handle the hustles of the downfalls or previous studies (Rosenbaum, 2014). As such, an understanding and proper analysis of what other scholars have managed to gather through the years precisely depends on the studies picked by the researcher. As a result, a vivid picture will be needed to help show and demonstrate how an active management program in the healthcare has been implemented through RFID (Stephanie, 2013).
References
Andrews, R. (2003). Research questions. London: Continuum.
Ajami S, & Rajabzadeh A. (2013). Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and patient safety. J. Res. Med. Sci. Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 18(9), 809–813.
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage.
Oranje-Nassau, C. van, Schindler, H. R., Vilamovska, A.-M., Botterman, M., RAND Europe, Rand Corporation, … Information Society DG. (2010). Policy options for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) application in healthcare ; a prospective view final report (D5). Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Rosenbaum, B. P. (2014). Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Health Care: Privacy and Security Concerns Limiting Adoption. J Med Syst Journal of Medical Systems, 38(3), 1–6.
Stephanie B. (2013, December 5). Attention Required! | CloudFlare. Retrieved from http://medcitynews.com/2013/12/5-ways-hospitals-implementing-rfid-tags-emerging-trend-healthcare/?rf=1
Wamba, S. F. (2012). RFID-enabled healthcare applications, issues and benefits: An archival analysis (1997–2011). Journal of medical systems, 36(6), 3393-3398.
Yin, R. K. (2013). Case study research: Design and methods. Sage publications.
- If this is your anchor it must be supported by peer reviewed or government citation less than 5-years old from anticipated completion date
With this section you need to provide a brief discussion on the research method (i.e. quantitative or qualitative) and design (i.e. correlation for quantitative study; phenomenological, case study, etc., for a qualitative design); cite a minimum of one source (The method and design will be discussed in greater detail in Section 2).
Clearly and concisely identify the theory/conceptual framework. In quantitative studies, the theoretical framework is the appropriate term and in qualitative studies the conceptual framework is the appropriate term. The student will articulate the theoretical/conceptual framework with concepts from the literature to ground and complement the applied business study.
