Hospitals incorporate many different practices and technologies to help ensure patient safety in the operating room (OR). This paper describes the design and initial testing of a radio-frequency identification (RFID) based system to improve patient safety. As of publication, it had not been used with actual patients.

Patients, staff, blood products, and equipment are identified through RFID tags. The system checks that the correct patient is in the OR, that the operating table is correct for the patient, that all necessary staff are present, and that the blood for transfusion is properly matched. It gathers information from the hospital’s electronic medical record, displays relevant information on the status board, and monitors physiologic data from patient sensors. It is designed to both verify that “all systems are go” and to flag potential errors.

The gathering, organizing, and display of critical data is not a new idea; similar systems for intensive care units were described over a decade ago, including use of the common “green/yellow/red” display. It will be interesting to see a report on the system in actual use.