The health care radio frequency identification market is growing substantially, according to a new Spyglass Consulting Group report, Healthcare IT News reports.
The adoption and investment in RFID technology increased 204% from Spyglass' 2005 RFID study, according to Gregg Malkary, managing director of Spyglass. He said, "RFID investments are growing exponentially as health care organizations develop a better understanding of the technology and how it can be used to solve real problems within their facility."
Malkary said that health care organizations are using RFID technology to boost patient safety and operational efficiency and to optimize business workflow processes.
The study, titled "Trends in RFID 2008," found that 76% of larger health care organizations have invested in RFID-based applications. Malkary said that larger hospitals are more likely than smaller organizations to invest in RFID technology because there is a greater need to track things.
The study found that department leaders are investing in RFID to solve specific business problems but that hospital administrators are reluctant to deploy the technology throughout the organization until the clinical, financial and operational efficacy of the tools are demonstrated enterprise-wide, Healthcare IT News reports.
Malkary calls the increase in the health care RFID market "the beginning of the curve" and predicts that the market will continue to grow.
The Spyglass study was based on 100 telephone interviews conducted over a three-month period beginning in March with health care professionals working in pharmacy, clinical engineering, materials management, laboratory and medical/nursing informatics (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 7/8).