In the health sector, RFID can be used particularly for documentation and process management, location and tracking, for administering and labelling medicines and for managing performance data. According to experts, its greatest potential for optimisation lies in the working processes associated with documentation, which is one of the most time-consuming administrative tasks in health care facilities, as well as in general process management. RFID also has potential when it comes to locating and tracking persons, materials or equipment, above all reducing searching and waiting times by tracking them down promptly and quickly, and improved information on stocks of equipment and materials makes it possible for repair, maintenance and storage costs to be reduced. To take another example, it also makes possible the monitoring of various parameters, including the maintenance of specified temperatures while products or goods are in storage or in transit, not to mention the ways in which RFID technology can contribute substantially to patient safety, for example by locating confused or mentally ill patients and protecting neonates against abduction.

According to studies carried out in the USA, an estimated 1 in 52,000 operations were carried out on the wrong patient, and the Aktionsbündnis Patientensicherheit (German Coalition for Patient Safety) in Germany estimates that between 100 and 240 injuries a year are sustained during the course of surgical procedures and give rise to claims. It is here that the use of RFID systems for identifying patients and procedures could make a significant contribution to improving patient safety and preventing loss events. A number of hospitals have already introduced the practice of giving newly-admitted patients an armband with an RFID transponder containing not only a unique identifying number but also the patient’s basic data, which can at any time be read off on the wards using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Diagnostic and therapeutic measures can also be documented and stored, thus minimizing the risk of confusion and facilitating the speedy and reliable accessing of patients’ particularities, such as allergies and intolerances. Regulations on the handling of blood and blood products prescribe exact maintenance of temperatures during storage and transit and the clear and continuous documentation of the whole process from the time the blood is taken from one person,  including its processing, testing and storage, until the time it is administered to another. This can, in practice, be labour-intensive and timeconsuming. Here, too, RFIDs can be used to enhance safety while at the same time optimising procedures.