Matthew James Donnelly

After reading the article I would say that it pointed out many great advantages of RFID implementation in hospitals. It has always been said that the difference between life and death can often depend upon a few seconds; therefore, systems like the RFID that can save time in hospitals could result in many saved lives. However, in regards to your first question, I find it difficult to answer because I myself don’t know of many of the risks associated with RFID in hospitals. The article did not touch on any but you mentioned that radio frequencies being sent out by an RFID could potentially interfere with other radio frequencies in the hospital. You also mentioned cyber risk with regards to hackers. Both these are great examples of risks that did not initially come to my mind and would definitely play a part in the implementation of an RFID program if I were the CEO of a health system (question 2).

I think the utilization of RFID’s would greatly benefits hospitals in treating patients both effectively and efficiently. Even other industries like shipping and parcel services have used RFID’s to track and locate products so I think there use may become more widespread. As far as the possible risks regarding patient information, I don’t think RFID systems would promote hacking considering the same information could be hacked on other hospital servers as well. I see a lot of potential of an RFID system in the healthcare field. With technology, there are always possible issues, but I think the pros of attending to patients much quicker outweigh the potential cons.