Staff Awareness, Attitudes, and Skills toward Radio Frequency Identification Adoption in Medical Laboratories

Background and purpose: Radio Frequency Identification technology (RFID) is a beneficial tool in providing diagnostic and treatment services in the healthcare domain.This study aims to investigate  awareness, attitudes, and  skills of medical private and public laboratory the staff in implementing RFID. Materials and Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional study conducted based on the descriptive-applied approach in private and public medical laboratories in Shiraz in 2017. The population size of this study included all laboratories’ staff that involved technicians, technologists, and technical supervisors. 147 staffs were then assigned through census. Data was collected using a researcher-made checklist, and its validity and reliability were assessed and approved. The collected data was then analysed in a significance level of 0.05 using descriptive statistics and t-test, ANOVA ,and Pearson correlation test in SPSS23. Results: Findings showed that the mean awareness, attitude and skill scores of participants were 3.13±0.91, 4.09 ± 0.38 and 2.39±0.65, respectively. In this regard, the staff  awareness and attitude scores labelled good, and their skill score labelled medium. Also, almost all participants had a positive attitude toward executing RFID, and there was documented a significant direct association between the staff knowledge, attitudes, and skills dimensions.  Conclusion: Considering the inchoate RFID technology and its limited usage, the staff RFID skills needed improvement. Therefore, the results suggested that the necessary training followed by implementing RFID technology should have received a high-level priority on policymakers’ agenda.