Abstract

Background and Objectives

The improvement of the quality of health care services, the enhancement of the safety in services, the establishment of patient satisfaction, and hemovigilance are some of the main factors which illustrate the necessity of using new technologies in health care services. RFID is a type of wireless technology which can help to increase the quality of services provided in hospitals. The purpose of this study is to identify waste in the blood use in hospitals, apply tracking tools to improve the use of blood products, and reduce the loss of blood.

Materials and Methods

The research is based on the real and tangible need in the hospital environments and it is an applicable research. To find the impact of RFID system on the improvement of service quality and the reduction of the blood wastage, it was put to a simulation test that was favored over the real test for the reasons of cost effectiveness. In this study, after reviewing the current situation and identifying the causes of blood wastage, “Discrete Event” simulation and Enterprise Dynamic (ED) software were used to simulate the proposed model and improvement scenario (using RFID).

Results

Simulation results show that the average total loss of blood products, after implementation of RFID (over six months), has experienced a decrease rate of about 75%.

Conclusions

RFID system can affect the inventory management, and make real-time tracking and recording of information possible thereby ensuring more accuracy in blood transfusion attempts.