Improving the Quality and Cost of Healthcare Delivery
The Potential of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology
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This study investigates whether an upcoming class of health information technology (HIT) can be used to address currently outstanding issues in the quality and cost of healthcare delivery. Expert interviews and a literature review were used to describe the 2009 universe of in- and outpatient healthcare RFID applications and to identify those applications expected to have the largest positive impact on the quality and cost-effectiveness of healthcare delivery over the next five to ten years. Next, case studies of actual RFID implementations across seven hospital sites in the U.S. and Europe were conducted to gain an understanding of how each leading RFID application type creates value, what aspects of care it impacts, and what the critical factors driving the promising RFID’s organizational benefits and costs are. As part of this work, an original set of healthcare RFID cost-benefit evaluation tools was developed and tested. The study’s findings indicate that in contrast to other types of HIT, the majority of benefits associated with successful RFID implementation are directly related to money saved (occurring as direct capital and operational cost savings), and that select RFID applications can substantially impact both the cost (e.g., efficiency) and the quality (e.g., timeliness, capacity for continuous improvement) of care delivery. Critical challenges for RFID adoption are described.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Why Examine RFID's Potential Role in Healthcare Delivery
Chapter Two
RFID in Healthcare: Uses, Evidence on Impacts, Promising Applications
Chapter Three
Defining Promising RFID's Range of Impacts and Creating Enterprise-Level Cost-Benefit Evaluation Structures
Chapter Four
Experienced Impacts: Case Studies of Advanced Market-Ready RFID Applications in the Hospital Setting
Chapter Five
Summary of Results, Study Conclusions and Policy Implications
Appendix 1
Healthcare RFID technology, brief reader
Appendix 2
References for systematic literature review on RFID in healthcare
Appendix 3
Detailed methodology and additional results of systematic literature review
Appendix 4
Examples of existing classifications of healthcare RFID
Appendix 5
Key RFID expert and stakeholder interview respondents
Appendix 6
Protocol for semi-structured expert interviews
Appendix 7
Impact measures for portable asset, operating floor and medical floor management RFID applications
Appendix 8
Adaptive structuration theory and healthcare RFID’s organizational value
Appendix 9
Methodology for multiple case study design
Appendix 10
Detailed case study presentations
Research conducted by
This document was submitted as a dissertation in May 2010 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in public policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The faculty committee that supervised and approved the dissertation consisted of Richard Hillestad (Chair), Evi Hatziandreu, and Robin Meili.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation Dissertation series. Pardee RAND dissertations are produced by graduate fellows of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, the world's leading producer of Ph.D.'s in policy analysis. The dissertations are supervised, reviewed, and approved by a Pardee RAND faculty committee overseeing each dissertation.
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