Hello! Interestingly, RFID is now being used in the tracking of medical marijuana!  To read more please visit http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/8673

Using a combination of Ekahau’s Wi-Fi based RTLS personnel badges and asset tags, the safety of the hospital’s waste management is improved, with a better overall visibility and control over the process.

Reston VA /Beijing,
July 28, 2011 – Ekahau Inc., the worldwide leader in high performance Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), announced today that Guang’anmen Hospital in Beijing, one of the leading hospitals affiliated with China Academy of Chinese Medical Science, focusing on clinical practice, scientific research and education, has chosen Ekahau’s RTLS system to monitor hazardous medical waste disposal. HKC Technology Co., as the local IT integrator is responsible for installation and support the system at the hospital.

“A secure disposal of medical waste is important for safety and compliance reasons,” said Ms. Jie Wang, head of disposal control. “For this purpose, our hospital personnel will carry Ekahau  T301BD personnel badges, and the medical waste truck will be equipped with the Ekahau T301A asset tags. The medical waste truck can only open the container cover at certain waste collection points, if a person nearby is carrying the T301BD badge. In case of unauthorized opening of the medical waste truck cover, Ekahau’s T301A tamper sensor will trigger an alert sent to the truck-paired personnel, as well as the disposal control room. Also, in an emergency, personnel can trigger an alarm with tag buttons, to inform staff members exactly where help is needed.

“We selected Ekahau as our partner because a route tracking system must be able to guarantee that it can locate the source of the alert – and Ekahau can provide precisely this capability,” said Samuel Ng, Deputy CEO at HKC. “Ekahau offers the highest location accuracy and has the best real-time performance. Ekahau’s solution also is compatible with the co-existing hospital PDA systems installation operating over the Cisco WLAN.”

“We’re very pleased that the collaboration between HKC and the GAMH has gone so smoothly,” said Mika Kouhia, Regional Sales Director APAC, at Ekahau. “With these positive experiences, I see a strong foundation for the implementation of new collaborative projects in China.”

About HKC Technology
(Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

HKC Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary company of HKC International Holdings Limited. Established in 2001 in Shanghai, the company aims at providing one-stop IT solutions and services to customers in China. It is responsible for providing PABX and telecom solutions, and has also extended its business to deliver systems integration and services such as product and technical support for computer network, structural cabling, board room solutions, security and intercom, RFID, business intelligence, analysis and
planning management software. In 2008, the company opened a Beijing branch, serving many North China customers in hotels, hospitals, business enterprises and government organizations.

About Ekahau, Inc.

Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based RTLS solutions. Ekahau’s customers, including several Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi based location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools. Ekahau’s solutions are being used in more than 300 hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturing, retail and industrial companies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners include wireless software developers, leading system integrators and international OEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau is a U.S.-based corporation, with headquarters in Reston, Va., and other offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Helsinki, Finland; Tokyo; and Hong Kong. For more information about Ekahau, please visit www.ekahau.com.

RFID used to track wildife.  To learn more: http://www.rfidjournal.com/blog/entry/8633/

Diane Benson, Gold Level CTSM •   As an exhibitor at healthcare meetings, I appreciate that show organizers are branching out to use new technology such as RFID tags to help provide meaningful metrics to their exhibitors as well as to themselves in the interest of improving the technical exhibits experience for their attendees. This technology enables show organizers to track traffic flow in the exhibit halls, to know when attendees visit, how long they visit, and what path they take around/through the hall. It allows them to evaluate if attendees come back day after day. Exhibitors who purchase RFID scanners and place them within their booths at various locations are able to determine in which products or services the attendees had the most interest, and when their busiest times of the day were. Such valuable data helps show organizers design the exhibit halls for future meetings, and helps exhibitors schedule their booth staff accordingly as well as plan what products or services to promote at future meetings. Daily views of RFID traffic could enable exhibitors to actually change their booths around overnight to make them more attendee-friendly. One complaint that exhibitors often have is that despite the numbers of registered attendees a show organizer claims it has, the traffic on the show floor does not reflect the same numbers. This is especially true in cities that have a big appeal for tourism, such as Honolulu, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Diego and San Francisco. RFID data can help the show organizer get a true picture of whether or not their attendees are really visiting the exhibit hall.
All that said, in my opinion, Dr. Fisher is over-reacting on the privacy and cost issues he mentions. If physicians and technologists are actually attending the sessions they have signed up to attend, they have nothing to worry about when claiming their CME credits. The exhibitors are paying for the RFID technology by renting the scanners to place in our booths; there is no extra cost to the attendees. And if he is truly worried about being tracked, he shouldn’t even carry an iPhone or other smart phone (based on recent stories in the news). I think he should be grateful that some show organizers and exhibitors are working at improving the efficiency and friendliness of the technical exhibit halls and in providing a more satisfying attendee experience overall.

As RFID reaches maturity and adoption begins to spread, companies are finding innovative ways to use the technology. Read more: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/8435

Trimble has announced new capabilities for its ThingMagic Mercury6e (M6e), Mercury5e (M5e) and Mercury5e-Compact (M5e-C) embedded ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID reader modules. Read more: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/8467

RFID solutions provider Identec Group has announced that it has completed a $7.5 million equity capital round with private investors.  Read more: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/8467

MSR-FSR is using an RFID system to record data regarding when, where and how clean-room garments are washed, dried and repaired.  http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/8432

IC-Tag Solutions, a manufacturer of customizable, pressure-sensitive labels and tags that specializes in passive RFID, has announced that its solutions have been chosen by several companies to provide race-timing systems that let racers wear tags so their times can be accurately and instantly tracked. IC-Tag Solutions provides a number of RFID-based tracking solutions that employ ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) or high-frequency (HF) labels and tags that the company produces using inlays from such companies as Avery Dennison, Alien Technology and UPM RFID. Its roster includes direct thermal and thermal-transfer labels, PolyPremium RFID labels made of a highly durable film, the IC-TAG Capsule (an RFID label designed for metal-mount applications), RFID wristbands and 13.56 MHz sensor tags. The tags designed for the race-timing solutions leverage EPC Gen 2 inlays, according to Olga Green, IC-Tag Solutions’ marketing director, who says her company has seen a large demand for 4-by-2-inch RFID labels made with UPM RFID’s DogBone inlays for use in marathons. Using RFID at racing events enables commentators to provide live updates of racing statistics, she explains, rather than waiting until the race ends. Customers include TimeYourRace, a provider of RFID-based race-timing solutions. IC-Tag Solutions’ customers also include companies that utilize the EPC Gen 2 tags to track production, such as Imperial SportBikes, located in Sheridan, Colo. As major part of its business, Green says, the bike company sells parts that it removes from used motorcycles—primarily European sport bikes. Every part taken off of a bike is unique, and thus must be pictured and identified—which means the company has approximately 9,000 unique parts. It uses RFID labels from IC-Tag Solutions to create an inventory system, locate items and track all of its parts. An RFID tag is encoded for every part of a motorcycle as it is dismantled, with each tag linked in the parts database to a unique identifier. Every part is also attributed to a bike by a vehicle identification number (VIN). The parts are bagged or wrapped, and are then placed into a tote and moved to their assigned shelf locations. Two RFID portals are used to track the parts as they leave the warehouse. Eventually, Imperial SportBikes intends to install readers on the shelving to automatically track inventory as it is placed on or removed from the shelves.