Abstract

Advances in medical technology rely heavily on the collection and analysis of measured data to facilitate patient diagnosis and business decisions. The healthcare industry, particularly pharmaceuticals and diagnostic processes, has an ongoing need to improve item tracking and data collection to improve the quality of care while reducing cost. This paper primarily focuses on integrating radio frequency identification (RFID) inside of artificial organs to provide doctors and nurses a better synopsis of the embedded organ. The remote, non-invasive characteristics of RFID can facilitate the information needs of healthcare without imposing additional burden onto the patient or staff. Properly deployed RFID-enabled devices are envisioned to provide convenient and accurate data for artificial organ conditions and critical information that may be necessary for medical specialists to better serve patients with these organs. This chapter describes an all-encompassing RFID tracking system that begins with compliance documentation from implementation duration of the patient’s life. This RFID system can provide data for decision-making and facilitate compliance with FDA imposed e-pedigree requirements. This transcript introduces healthcare trends in order to motivate the need for a biocompatible RFID system. The overall goal of the pending research is to develop biocompatible RFID tag components for use with systems implemented inside artificial organs and continued through the duration of the device as mentioned above. It is envisioned that successful implementation of this technology could improve life expectancy of patients with artificial organs by 10%.