Equipment Location in Hospitals Using RFID-Based Positioning System

Throughout various complex processes within hospitals, context-aware services and applications can help to improve the quality of care and reduce costs. For example, sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies for e-health have been deployed to improve the flow of material, equipment, personal, and patient. Bed tracking, patient monitoring, real-time logistic analysis, and critical equipment tracking are famous applications of real-time location systems (RTLS) in hospitals. In fact, existing case studies show that RTLS can improve service quality and safety, and optimize emergency management and time critical processes. In this paper, we propose a robust system for position and orientation determination of equipment. Our system utilizes passive (RFID) technology mounted on flooring plates and several peripherals for sensor data interpretation. The system is implemented and tested through extensive experiments. The results show that our system´s average positioning and orientation measurement outperforms existing systems in terms of accuracy. The details of the system as well as the experimental results are presented in this paper.