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Application of RFID Technology to Reduce Overcrowding in Hospital Emergency Departments

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation ((LNISO,volume 26))

Abstract

Australian hospital Emergency Departments (ED) are experiencing challenges due to overcrowding despite the government’s regular initiative of improved model of care. Australian Triage model of care within ED has not been able to prove reflective for ramification of the issues associated with overcrowding. This paper explores the opportunity for the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in hospital ED to reduce overcrowding. The Australian ED model of care with Triage scale and improved patient journey were studied. The best possible RFID integration was sought and evaluated against health care domain’s model of care. Potential indicators of suitability were ED length of stay, ED wait times. Ambulance diversions were studied and contrasted from the start of the patient journey to the end of the patient’s treatment cycle, to find opportunities for the implementation of RFID technology. Based on the results of the study, it is recommended that RFID implementation be tested in actual scenarios to realise the potential benefits.

A prior version of this paper has been published in the ISD2017 Proceedings (http://aisel.aisnet.org/isd2014/proceedings2017).

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Correspondence to Aneesh Krishna .

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Thapa, R.R., Bhuiyan, M., Krishna, A., Prasad, P.W.C. (2018). Application of RFID Technology to Reduce Overcrowding in Hospital Emergency Departments. In: Paspallis, N., Raspopoulos, M., Barry, C., Lang, M., Linger, H., Schneider, C. (eds) Advances in Information Systems Development. Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, vol 26. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74817-7_2

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