RFID Tags Can Interfere With Medical Devices

An anonymous reader writes "A new study suggests RFID systems can cause 'potentially hazardous incidents in medical devices.' (Here is the JAMA study's abstract.) Among other things, electrical interference changed breathing machines' ventilation rates and caused syringe pumps to stop. Some hospitals have already begun using RFID tags to track a wide variety of medical devices, but the new finding suggests the systems may have unintended consequences."

Interference in medicine

[neapolitan (1100101)]

Interesting -- Slashdot has talked about this kind of thing before and I remember responding:

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234315&cid=19078365 [slashdot.org]

Every time I read something like this I get a bit frustrated. I can't paste the whole article for copyright reasons, but I am hoping a kind AC will. Either way, the gist of the article is that when very close (some have interference "distances" of 0.1 cm) RFID active readers / transmitters may interfere with some medical equipment.

The interobserver variability in the study was high, and they defined an event very broadly, essentially as any change in the operation of a device. It is a bit aggressive -- and I fear that good technology may inadvertently be stifled for "interference" concerns...

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[Gewalt (1200451)]

can't paste the whole article for copyright reasons, but I am hoping a kind AC will.

Believe it or not, but you too can actually post as AC! It's amazing, I know! Just check that box you see right after the subject of your post.

More Slashdot pseudo-science

[Futurepower(R) (558542)]

Thanks for adding some sensible information to the discussion. Slashdot editors seem not to be able to know the difference between science and foolish imaginings.

Here is a quote, a comment [wsj.com] to the Wall Street Journal story:

"interference changed breathing machines' ventilation rates and caused syringe pumps to stop."
These things are FCC regulated. Should I feel safe knowing that not only are some of the systems in a hospital sensitive to EMF below FCC limits, but also that several life-critical device

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[mrbluze (1034940)]

The interobserver variability in the study was high, and they defined an event very broadly

It was the same with mobile phones - in almost all circumstances they made absolutely no difference, since practically all devices are properly shielded. But we kept the "Switch off your fuckin phone" signs up because it was just plain annoying when patients (especially teenage females) are forever texting and chatting when you're trying to explain a procedure to them.

OTOH I think RFID tags and many other technological 'enhancements' are thrust upon the medical industry by IT reps and accepted by hospita

Pros and cons

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

First off, lets be pedantic. RFID tags are passive (well slightly active while transponding) and don't cause problems just sitting there. It is the readers that cause the problems.

The field drops off at a square of distance, so a RFID reader at 10cm will have one hundredth the EM field of a reader at 1cm.

A huge % of medical deaths are due to human error (wrong drugs/dosage etc)and the correct use of RFID can go a long way to mitigate that. Clearly that would be offset if the RFID equipment was to interfere

Re:Interference in medicine

[bill_mcgonigle (4333)]

I can corroborate your basic point, and the sad part is that my data is 10 years old. Back then wireless ethernet (2Mbps pre-b stuff, even) was new and we were testing for interference. The very same kinds of machines had trouble as in TFS, and it was at sub-foot ranges.

I suspect either this study tested old gear (I'm assuming our hospital used a popular vendor) or the same vendors are playing lazy. Back then, the biomedical engineering guys explained to me that the FCC granted exceptions to medical device manufacturers for emitted interference, and that an emitter is a receiver, but that most good medical products companies didn't need to bother with these exceptions, they did a fine job on principle.

Let's just hope...

[katterjohn (726348)]

..that people with these devices don't receive any mail via snail.

Hazardous

[electricbern (1222632)]

I dub thee harzardous technology of the week. You can now join the cellphone, TV, radio, power grid, Internet, and so on in the list of hazardous technology. Welcome on board.

Need in health care for asset tracking

[steeljaw (65872)]

Interestingly enough, I've been approached 3 times now by people in the health care industry who have expressed a need for some time of asset tracking software and I've always given them my brother's card (his company specializes in RFID based asset tracking). Actually, one person specifically asked me if I was capable of integrating an RFID solution into their environment. I wonder how many companies are currently developing RFID based software geared towards the health care industry only to receive a backlash from the medical community when this type of information becomes common knowledge..

FUD and title errors

[by Anonymous Coward]

Even if you ignore this article's lack of specifics or detail (which makes it more or less FUD in my view), the title /. gave it is *flatly incorrect*. It's not the tags that are causing the interference; it is the reader/interrogator. These inexpensive passive UHF tags are just that, passive; it's the active (4W) signal that might be able to interfere.

Yes, there are serious concerns with RFID, but there's no point spreading vague FUD. In medical applications, interference obviously a very serious matter. Several groups are working on this problem, so how about we wait until we have solid results before we make up our minds?

Well???

[Creepy Crawler (680178)]

Why are these medical devices having problems like that? I thought medical devices were SUPPOSED to be hardened against bad things and fail over nicely.

I guess not.

The headline is wrong, as usual.

[John Hasler (414242)]

The interference came from the readers not the tags. The tags are passive.

Safety Recalls Needed

[John Hasler (414242)]

The machines that suffered dangerous faults should be recalled and repaired. Keeping them away from RFID readers and other sources of rf will not suffice. The fact that rf interference could cause dangerous faults means that they contain design defects such that component failures or other sorts of damage or interference could also cause dangerous faults.

And yes, I have designed medical life support equipment, though not in this century.

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[CodeBuster (516420)]

Isn't this why the FCC here in the United States classifies different electronic devices according to whether or not they can emit or must accept radio frequency interference from outside sources? Perhaps the medical device manufacturers have a more critical classification where they have the "right" not to be interfered with (unlike say, your iPod which must accept any outside interference and generate none of its own) and designed their systems around this assumption of legal protection by device classifi

Re:This is too much

[FooAtWFU (699187)]

Right. Because "quickly locating a very expensive portable medical device which may have been left in the wrong room in a 10,000-room hospital" is a problem that didn't exist before those evil overlords invented it. Heck, even the "gee it would be nice to track my supply chain better" problems are fundamentally real. And these things work.

You talk of privacy issues and such? Oh, you betcha! They're real. But you can't pretend it's not a useful technology. That is the real insult to intelligence in this thread.

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[PopeRatzo (965947)]

But you can't pretend it's not a useful technology.

If they want to put them on expensive medical equipment, I'm OK with that. But I absolutely don't want them on anything I carry,or wear, or my car, or my bike, not even my rollerblades. Certainly not on my currency or anything I use as currency. And I don't want them on my self (Google "SWIFT" and be appalled).

Besides the fact that I find this surveillance culture creepy as hell, and absolutely do not trust any of the people who are likely to have access

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[flaming error (1041742)]

"quickly locating a very expensive portable medical device which may have been left in the wrong room in a 10,000-room hospital"

Who/what are you quoting? RFID is good at identifying things you have, not finding things you've lost. Distances like 30 cm aren't much help "in a 10,000-room hospital".

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[FooAtWFU (699187)]

Actually, my company occasionally works with active, battery-powered RFID tag technology. They chirp location beacons by themselves. I understand most of the applications are currently more "warehouse" than "hospital", though.

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[SomeJoel (1061138)]

Are you suggesting that because of some perceived misuse of the technology, we should protest its existence? RFID readers are used in some semiconductor manufacturing fabs to track carriers (and hence wafers). These allow for faster and easier reading than other tracking devices, such as barcode readers. This generally make an automated fab run more smoothly, and increases throughput. I don't think this particular use violates your security, privacy, or freedom.

Re:This is too much

[Awptimus Prime (695459)]

I am on the same page as you. I suspect I am old enough to be one of the few people here who have had to do pre-IT work in my younger days. I once worked for a gigantic (800,000 sq ft) food distribution center. Many times, the outside of pallets "packages" would have the bar codes scraped off them due to handling with forklifts, lift-clamps, etc. If I had the option of just driving a big palette of food products through a scanning device that counted the products and gave me weights automatically, it would have added up to likely 10 hours of time saved per loader a week. Not to mention the hazards of having to get on and off an industrial lift repeatedly all day long, the shock to joints, the static discharge (sometimes reaching an 8" arc), and so on would have been nice to cut down on.

My impression with a lot of the folks who play a scared advocate on such technologies don't have much of a grasp of what the rest of the world has to put up with in their day-to-day experiences and could care less about their lives being easier, because, there *might* be some madman somewhere ready to spy on them given the chance. These same people probably do their banking online, have credit cards, and homes without decent security systems. Those are the real things to worry about, in my opinion.

This same line of thought often reminds me of the "sticking it to the man" attitude I see around here a lot. Like "It's about time Company X learned it's lesson", well, Company X doesn't usually learn a lesson. The individuals on the lower end of the employment ladder just get treated worse, while the shareholders and executives don't really have much to worry about. Or, "Corporate greed", got to love that one. It's the individual greed of many people combined with a lot of Joes trying to keep their households afloat. There I go rambling again.

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[fragmentate (908035)]

You had me...

Right up until you brought up Richard Stallman.

That guy would protest clean underwear, not just RFID tagged underwear.

Next.

Oh, please

[spun (1352)]

Lets take these points one by one. First, it is not a flawed idea, it is a flawed implementation. All privacy concerns can be easily mitigated, with or without cooperation from RFID manufacturers. Pop your undies in the microwave for ten seconds and they won't be reporting back to the mothership, don't worry. Second, they are a technological solution to a physical, not social problem: inventory tracking. The fact that they are being used in other ways does not change the fact that this is what they were invented for, and they do a good job keeping costs down and efficiency up.

Bruce was complaining about their use in passports. So, screen the passports so they can't be read unless opened. Besides the passport issue, here is Stallman's fear:

Progress in gel batteries could result in RFIDs readable from 300 feet. If one of them is inserted in something you carry, you could be scanned from a block away! Total monitoring of everyone's movements could be a reality.

Gosh, that could never happen with any other kind of technology, oh wait, spies have been doing that for years, and tracking people over a much longer distance. How would protesting RFID change that, exactly? There are much, much scarier things to protest against than RFID tags, get some perspective please.

Re:Oh, please

[johnny cashed (590023)]

Pop your undies in the microwave for ten seconds and they won't be reporting back to the mothership, don't worry.

But it is what's in my undies that concerns me...

on another tangent...

But how do I know that my microwave doesn't have an RFID reader that enables it to know that there is an RFID tag inside and it only goes through the motions of microwaving my undies, thereby rendering any RFID chip(s) in my undies untouched and fully functional? Far fetched? Future microwave dinners and popcorn might have RFID tags embedded which tell various microwave oven how long to cook the product. Can I get thicker tinfoil for my hat?

Re:Oh, please

[spun (1352)]

Oh man, you are using actual tinfoil for your hat? You know that's made from aluminum, right? Aluminum amplifies the mind control rays.

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[johnny cashed (590023)]

No No, it's tinfoil all right. It says so on the label...wait a minute, how do I know if Fisher Scientific isn't in on it as well... Everyone is conspiring against me...