From Reuters: 

Radio frequency identification in hospitals could pose risks
Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:07pm EDT

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - Radio frequency identification chips (RFID) used to track
and trace products could cause critical care medical devices such as
pacemakers and ventilators to fail, Dutch researchers said on Tuesday.

Electromagnetic interference from the chips caused 22 problems that could
endanger patients, ranging from completely stopping syringe pumps to
switching off ventilators, said Erik Jan van Lieshout, a critical care
physician at the Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam.

"We wanted to investigate the safety of RFID in healthcare because it hasn't
been tested," Van Lieshout, who co-led the study, told Reuters. "This is the
first study ever done on RFID interference within the hospital."

Retailers have embraced RFID and the technology is now moving into
healthcare, with spending in the United States the researchers estimate will
grow to $2 billion annually in the next ten years from a current $90
million.

Potential applications include marking drug blister packs to prevent
counterfeiting, monitoring blood products with temperature-sensitive blood
products and tracking and tracing important medical equipment and devices,
Van Lieshout said.

The potential for harmful electromagnetic interference from electronic
anti-theft surveillance systems on some pacemakers and defibrillators is
also known but the effect on other critical care devices is not certain, the
researchers said.

"Implementation of RFID in the intensive care unit and other similar health
care environments should require on-site electromagnetic interference tests
in addition to updated international standards," Van Lieshout and colleagues
wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The Dutch team tested electromagnetic interference of the two most common
RFID systems in a one-bed patient room in an intensive care unit with no
patients.

Their tests on 41 devices identified 22 hazardous incidents, two they
classified as significant and another 10 as light. Most of the hazardous
incidents occurred at about 9.8 inches from the equipment, though they
recorded problems up to six meters away.

A hazardous incident was a problem that could directly endanger a patient
while a significant incident was one requiring a nurse's attention but not
something that put a person at immediate risk.

The findings should not dissuade hospitals from using a technology but they
underscore the need to make sure wireless signals are safe for patients, Van
Lieshout added.

"We don't want to induce a ban on RFID in healthcare because it has real
potential," he said. "But like other wireless signals it could endanger your
equipment, and thus your patient."

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Mariam Karouny)

Here's ZDNet's response:
Dana Blankenhorn

There is a problem with RFID in hospitals. There is no standard that will
tell hospitals what frequencies the tags are using. Thus they can't tell
when the frequencies being used by the tags might interfere with other gear.

This problem is very easy to fix. The industry gets together on an RFID
medical standard, which specifies which frequency is to be used. My choice
would be the upper range of 802.11, around 5.8 MHz. Medical devices don't
run there.

This use of unlicensed spectrum should guarantee there is no interference
with any gear running on licensed frequencies, and there are frequencies
licensed specifically for use by medical devices.

Farris Wahbeh
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