Due to the importance placed on patient safety and the automated medication administration system, yet another solution to improving patient identification has been introduced. Through the use of radio frequencies to identify patients, RFID wristbands provide hospitals with wireless data transmission that, much like barcodes, save time and money but do not require scanning a bar code on the patient’s chart or wristband. By using the RFID wristbands, patient information can be read through and around the human body, clothing, bed coverings, and other non-metallic materials. This added convenience becomes substantially important with the introduction of the need for frequent verification of the patient’s identification, as required by an automated medication administration system, enabling all necessary information to be collected without ever waking or disturbing the patient.

RFID wristbands provide non-transferable Positive Patient Identification, which can help save lives and money through reduced medical errors and increased patient safety.
Benefits of RFID include:

• Help improve system efficiency, tracking, and communication, while preventing data entry and collection errors
• Help ensure that the “Five Rights of Medication Safety” are achieved, facilitating real-time confirmation of the right patient, drug, dose, route, and time
• Read/write electronic storage technology allows for data transfer to and from host systems and data storage
• Yield larger memory capacities, larger reading ranges, and faster processing than bar codes
• Unlike bar codes, RFID’s non-line-of-site data transmission can be read through and around the human body, clothing, bed coverings, and non-metallic materials
• Smart Wristbands can be programmed and printed on demand by direct thermal or thermal transfer printers/encoders