Performance modeling and analysis of surgery patient identification using RFID

This paper proposes a workflow and performance model for surgery patient identification using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). Certain types of mistakes may be prevented by automatically identifying the patient before surgery. The proposed workflow is designed to ensure that both the correct site and patient are engaged in the surgical process. The performance model can be used to predict patient waiting time and service duration time with RFID implementation. A proof-of-concept system is developed to understand the information flow and to use information in RFID-based patient identification. Performance model indicates the response time to patients can be reduced to 38% after four hours using the proposed RFID based workflow.