RFID Healthcare & Patient Tracking System

Yes, but only if you specify a dual-chip band rather than a single-frequency one. One band can carry an HF 13.56 MHz chip — ISO 14443, Mifare or DESFire — for bedside taps and for the Mifare readers you already run on doors or the canteen, alongside a separate passive UHF chip (EPC Gen2, or ISO/IEC 18000-63) that a doorway portal picks up without a tap. Range on the UHF side is typically doorway-scale rather than room-wide, and it is worth validating on a worn band, since tissue absorbs UHF energy. In India that UHF chip is read in the 865–868 MHz band. The two chips are electrically independent and hold different numbers, so your software must map both IDs to one patient record. Agree the encoding in writing before bulk production, and confirm with your access-control vendor which sector keys or UID format its readers expect.

There is no list price; a system is quoted against a written specification, because the cost sits in four places. First the consumable — wristbands, which start at roughly Rs 15 per unit and move with chip type, quantity, material and printing. A single-use band issued per admission behaves as a recurring cost, a reusable silicone band as a capital item, so model both. Second, equipment tags: count and type, since an on-metal hard tag costs more than a plain label. Third, the number of read points — every doorway, ward and lift you want covered, plus antennas and cabling. Fourth, integration effort against your HIS or EMR. Send ward and bed counts, the exits to cover and how many assets you want tagged, and we will quote against that rather than against a generic bill of materials.

Three things, and it is worth securing them before hardware is ordered. One, a way to read admissions — an HL7 ADT feed, an API endpoint or a read-only view — so a band issued at registration is tied to the correct MRN without double entry. Two, a decision on whether alerts and location events are written back into the clinical record or held in a separate log staff can see, because that changes who signs off the integration. Three, a named vendor contact and a test environment; on hospital projects the integration access is often slower to arrange than the RFID work itself. Every Identium reader ships with an SDK, demo app and source code, so the reader layer is rarely what holds a project up. Put the HIS vendor's obligations into your own tender documents rather than raising them as a change request later.

Wipe-down, yes; autoclaving, only with the right material and sealing. Steam cycles run at roughly 121–134°C under pressure, which distorts a standard label or a plain ABS housing and can drive moisture past the chip seal. For surface-disinfected kit — infusion pumps, monitors, wheelchairs, beds — a passive UHF hard tag in ABS, PC or nylon, fixed with epoxy or a rivet, handles routine wiping. For anything entering a sterilisation cycle, specify a high-temperature material such as PPS with epoxy potting or ultrasonic welding, and give us the exact cycle temperature, hold time and chemistry so the material is chosen against it. Trial a small quantity through your own cycles before committing to volume; custom tags are typically a five to ten day turnaround from our New Delhi factory, and units are tested in-house before dispatch.

A hospital does not normally need a spectrum licence of its own. As of 2026, 865–868 MHz is delicensed in India for RFID within the power and channel limits WPC sets in its Short Range Devices (Exemption from Licence) Rules, 2021, so the compliance obligation sits with the equipment rather than the operator; Identium's UHF readers and antennas are WPC-approved for India's licence-exempt UHF RFID band, and the position is worth re-checking with WPC before it goes into a specification. India and Europe both use 865–868 MHz, so the figure to watch on an imported datasheet is the US plan at roughly 902–928 MHz, which is not permitted here. On interference, passive tags carry no battery and emit nothing until a reader energises them, and UHF reader output is adjustable, so bedside power can be set low. Even so, have biomedical engineering review antenna siting against your own EMC policy, and follow the device maker's published guidance for patients with a pacemaker or similar implant.