Paul M. Elizondo
IntelliGuard – VP Engineering/R&D
Chairman of the RAIN Healthcare Workgroup
This past summer, I attended the RAIN Alliance meeting in Vienna, where end users reported on successful implementations of RAIN RFID across multiple markets.
A healthcare organization in Ireland, consisting of 12 hospitals, is now tracking 4 million patient records with RAIN.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA / 290 Member Airlines) has officially approved the use of RAIN for tracking airline passenger baggage. Delta Air Lines, the leader in this application of RFID, will employ 100 million RAIN tags this year alone to improve customer satisfaction through improved baggage tracking.
As chairman of the RAIN Alliance healthcare workgroup, it is my responsibility to lead our members in the effort to accelerate the growth and adoption of RAIN in Healthcare. Our vision is to improve the quality of patient care by enabling healthcare providers to identify, locate, authenticate and engage with people and items across the care continuum. Among our goals, is the elimination of the barriers to the implementation of RAIN in Healthcare. We seek to accomplish this goal by making prospective end users aware of successful RAIN implementations and the achieved ROI.
In Vienna, during my report on the status of the healthcare workgroup, I removed my $45 leather belt (My pants stayed firmly in place due to the excellent food and refreshments provided by our host, NXP!!) and showed everyone the RAIN tag embedded in the price tag. How ironic it is that the RAIN tag allows Macy’s to locate, identify, engage with, and authenticate my $45 belt as it moves through the supply chain, yet there are millions of medications on the planet worth 100’s of billions of dollars, about whose pedigree we know nothing!
Japan is one country that recognizes the value of tracking medication with RFID. We learned at our meeting in Vienna that MITI (Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry) has formulated an initiative to make drug stores smarter. The initiative calls for billions of items in drug stores to be tagged with RFID by 2025. This vision is greatly encouraging to our healthcare workgroup members, who firmly believe that RAIN has the power to improve the quality of patient care.