Using RFID tags to improve the traceability of medical materials for surgery and the efficiency of SPD system

Abstract

We constructed an SPD system using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) that uses radio waves allowing identification of individual items, in order to reduce hospital expenditure by restructuring the methods for purchasing and supplying medical materials for surgery, and in order to increase treatment safety by improving the traceability of medical materials. Making medical materials traceable enabled us to find out their usage status, and standardized and improved the efficiency of the insurance billing process, and improvements to the method of supplying medical materials made operating room work more efficient and reduced stock levels. However, issues remain, including the question of how to deal with items that become unidentifiable due to being mistakenly discarded, the scope of medical materials to which RFID tags should be applied, and the method to use for applying tags.