CARING FOR THE CRITICALLY ILL PATIENT Electromagnetic Interference From Radio Frequency Identification Inducing Potentially Hazardous Incidents in Critical Care Medical Equipment

APPLICATIONS OF AUTOIDENTIfication technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) in everyday life include security access cards, electronic toll collection, and antitheft clips in retail clothing. RFID applications in health care have received increasing attention because of the potentially positive effect on patient safety and also on tracking and tracing of medical equipment and devices. The current expenditure levels on RFID systems within health care in the United States are estimated to be approximately $90 million per year with 10-year growth projections to $2 billion. Possible applications of RFID include drug blister packs, which could be intelligently marked to prevent drug counterfeiting; and the quality of blood products being monitored with temperature-sensitive RFID tags. The decreasing size and cost of RFID tags also permits incorporation into surgical sponges, endoscopic capsules, and endotracheal tubes, as well as the development of a syringeimplantable glucose-sensing RFID microchip. However, the array of literature that promotes RFID in health care is not accompanied by research on the safety of RFID technology within the health care environment. The potential for harmful electromagnetic interference (EMI) by electronic antitheft surveillance systems on implantable pacemakers and defibrillators has already been recognized, but EMI reports on critical care devices are lacking. The focus of the present study was to assess and classify incidents of EMI by RFID on critical care equipment.