At CenTrak, we believe that this third party comparison of technologies, in the recent article in JAMA about RFID interference with medical equipment, proves that our selection of Infrared and low power RF solution that does not use "Readers or Exciters" was the right decision to protect patient safety.

Radio frequency is a mechanism to send signals and vendors use the technology in different ways. Because of the threat of interference, CenTrak chose to use the 900 MHz ISM band, the same band safely used for decades in medical telemetry systems, and low powered tags, in fact, 1,000,000 times less power than the systems tested in the article. Another good example are SpectraLink phones, used nationwide by hospitals for communication by nurses, emit about 1,000 times more RF power than emitted by CenTrak’s tags.

With numerous equipment emitting thousands and sometimes millions of times more power than CenTrak’s tags in hospitals for many years, it is worth noting that Peper Long, a spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency is aware of the potential problem but has not received any reports of injuries directly caused by electronic interference with hospital medical devices. She said the FDA is testing certain medical devices to "determine their vulnerability and to what extent such vulnerability may be a public health concern." In addition, experts not involved in the study note that no injuries related to Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) have been reported in an actual clinical setting.

If you would like to speak to a CenTrak expert, please contact us at 215-860-2928 x 217, crosbach@centrak.com.