Design and Development of a Clinical Risk Management Tool Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

BACKGROUND Patient safety is one of the most important elements of quality of healthcare. It means preventing any harm to the patients during medical care process. OBJECTIVE This paper introduces a cost-effective tool in which the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is used to identify medical errors in hospital. METHODS The proposed clinical error management system (CEMS) is consisted of a reader device, a transfer/receiver device, a database and managing software. The reader device works using radio waves and is wireless. The reader sends and receives data to/from the database via the transfer/receiver device which is connected to the computer via USB port. The database contains data about patients' medication orders. RESULTS The CEMS has the ability to identify the clinical errors before they occur and then warns the care-giver with voice and visual messages to prevent the error. This device reduces the errors and thus improves the patient safety. CONCLUSION A new tool including software and hardware was developed in this study. Application of this tool in clinical settings can help the nurses prevent medical errors. It can also be a useful tool for clinical risk management. Using this device can improve the patient safety to a considerable extent and thus improve the quality of healthcare.