Potential Challenges of RFID Implementation: A Survey in Teaching Hospitals

Introduction: Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) can increase the quality of healthcare and improve patient safety by collecting information, automatically identifying patients, tracking patient movements and hospital equipment. However, successful implementation and adoption of this technology face several barriers. The objective of this study was to identify and prioritize the potential challenges of implementing RFID in hospitals. Methods: This study was conducted on all information technology administrators and managers of educational hospitals in Kerman (n=43). Data were collected through a valid and reliable (α=0.94) questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of two sections with 33 questions (4 questions for demographic information and 29 questions for implementation barriers). T-test and one-way ANOVA were used to examine the relationship between the barriers and demographic information. Results: Financial (3.67), managerial-specialized (3.40) and attitudinal-behavioral (3.36) barriers had the highest means among the RFID implementation barriers, respectively. Age, gender, work experience, and organizational position had no effect on the prioritization of barriers (P 0.05). Conclusion: Failure to finance RFID implementation project, spending a lot of time and money to train RFID users, and unfamiliarity of users with RFID created the most problems in implementing this technology, respectively. Therefore, making short and long-term policies to address these barriers are recommended. Hospital managers can overcome implementation barriers by making decisions based on a detailed and transparent analysis of return on investment, allocating funds to implementation projects, and careful planning for user training to improve their awareness and technical knowledge.