To help track Washington DC hospital patients in the event of a disaster, the US Government is exploring the use of RFID tags to locate them in real time. Nextgov reports that the radio frequency identification tags, which if they’re battery powered, can have a range of about 300 feet, can assist in locating people (with an accuracy rate of 95 percent) during crisis situations when every second can be critical.
Many hospitals already use RFID to track supplies and other assets, but using the technology to follow people is a relatively novel practice.
Nextgov: “RFID tags eyed to track Washington-area patients in case of disaster”
[via Harvard Government Innovators Network]
[Image via Daily RFID Co., LIMITED]
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Many hospitals used them already for newborns. However, the technology to secure them to a person is not much better than the tag shown in this post. When my daughter was born last year, I had to keep putting her tag back on her ankle as it kept falling off. When I informed nurses about this, they just shrugged…
mp/m
August 25th, 2009 at 7:45 pm