Smart patient tracking is an amazing illustration of how RFID  and IoT may benefit the healthcare sector by aiding in the provision of quality services and as a consequence, promoting better treatment. However, no technology is without its downsides.

Tracking patients in hospitals aid in improving security, identifying and addressing holes in internal procedures, improving bed allocation, updating doctor schedules, and increasing patient comfort. RFID and IoT technologies are used in patient tracking, allowing for the tracking, data storage, and analysis.

When a patient arrives at the medical facility, he or she is given a wristband containing an RFID tag. Each tag contains significant patient data, such as the patient's ID, username, electronic health records, medications, current condition, lab results, and prescribes prescriptions, and so on.

Benefits:

Improved tracking of patients' whereabouts

Real-time insight into each patient's whereabouts is incredibly advantageous for elderly patients and individuals with mental illness. For example, elderly patients or those suffering from a neurological illness(such as Alzheimer's disease) may get disoriented at the hospital and wander around, unable to fight their way to the ward.

Improved real-time insight into each patient's geolocation can result in a variety of other advantages, such as:

• Family and friends are immediately routed to a patient or told when a patient will be released from a current visit.
• Nurses are given a better opportunity to observe pediatric patients.
• A housekeeping department is alerted to clean the room when the patient vacates.

Improved treatment process tracking

A patient may forget to take medicine, go to a doctor's visit, have a screening, or undergo a certain treatment. RFID tracking enables quick pinpointing of each patient's exact position as well as reminders of impending planned events. A floor nurse may be in charge of this. Otherwise, a patient may be notified by a mobile app or even an email.

Concerns about implementing smart patient tracking

To allow efficient and secured patient tracking, the essential RFID and IoT technology pack characteristics must be addressed. They are cost-effective deployment and tag collision prevention.

•  Tracking people raises ethical concerns.
• Cybersecurity
• The requirement for continuous patient tracking

Conclusion

Smart patient monitoring with RFID and IoT provides more insights into each patient's whereabouts, enhances patient safety, and aids in identifying and filling holes in internal hospital procedures. However, there are a number of problems in implementing smart patient tracking such as cybersecurity.