RFID Technologies in the Health Sector

RFID technologies are increasingly acquiring a considerable relevance in the field of patients' assistance. This contributes to independent living and quality of life for many patients by reducing the need of caretakers and private nursing. In this chapter, the authors present an analysis of the use of RFID technologies for three different purposes: (i) collection and access of all patient records; (ii) tracking the movements of medical equipment; (iii) monitoring the health of patients. Moreover, the authors discuss the privacy implications and existing solutions. Privacy issue represents an obstacle to the acceptance of this technology. Transmitting unprotected signals, compressed in a standard format, through the RFID technology, is associated with the risk that someone might monitor these transmissions, accidentally or intentionally. Patient-monitoring applications require exceptional performance and quality of service to provide accurate, live information to the monitoring side.