In the application scenario of RFID, the medical market is one of the areas with good momentum and fast development in recent years, which is related to the characteristics of the medical industry. According to the data provided by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Society, in China, at least 200,000 people die every year due to the wrong drugs and improper use of drugs, the number of unqualified drugs takes up 11% to 26% of the number of drugs, and 10% of daily emergency cases are caused by drug mistakes.
According to the AIoT research Institute, in the process of medical supplies transportation, the average loss rate is at the level of 10%, and for some high-value supplies, the transportation loss rate is even higher. Therefore, RFID technology plays an important role in tracking and monitoring drugs and equipment and regulating the pharmaceutical supplies market.
Compared with the domestic, the application of overseas RFID tags in the medical field is more concentrated in the field of high-value and high-resistance special tags, as well as the supply chain optimization field of drug circulation process management. In the foreign medical field, the price of most RFID application tags is relatively high, which can reach a few dollars a tag price. At the same time, the various resistance properties of these labels are also relatively excellent, which can meet the normal work of medical scenes in harsh environments such as alcohol, corrosive liquids, ultraviolet rays, and high temperature steam.
About domestic applications
At present, RFID applications in the domestic medical field are mainly concentrated in linen management, bed management, wristband management, consumables management and blood bag management. Among them, the future growth of the field of linen management, consumables management and blood bag management may be more robust, and these several segments are dismantled in more detail here.
Shipment of RFID tags in the field of hospital linen management (unit: 10,000)
The label of the linen market has shown rapid development in recent years, with the fastest development rate of medical linen. Due to the rapid development, the market has entered many new players, linen labels have also opened up a number of new application scenarios such as hotel washing, work clothes washing, and the entire market is in rapid development. The label form mainly used in the linen market is RFID washing label, which is a kind of RFID special label. This label has the characteristics of high temperature resistance, chemical resistance, high wear resistance, etc., and needs to be manually sewn into sheets, towels and other supplies when used.
Shipments of RFID read-write devices in the field of Medical consumables management (Unit: unit)
In the field of medical consumables management, the main RFID products used are RFID intelligent high-value consumables cabinets, intelligent low-value consumables cabinets, consumables houses, reading and writing devices, intelligent shelves, etc. The product forms are diverse, but the overall read and write cabinet products are mainly, and the use of handheld devices is relatively small. However, due to the use of more cabinet products in the field of medical consumables, its overall output value occupies a relatively large proportion in the medical applications of RFID.
In the blood bag market, the application penetration rate of RFID is not large at present, but the growth in this field is very fast, and it is one of the emerging and promising subdivisions. According to the survey of AIoT Star Map Research Institute, as of the end of 2023, the penetration rate of RFID tags in the blood bag management market is only 2%, and the market prospect is broad. With the promotion of some policies in 2024, the market is expected to expand rapidly.
How will RFID medical applications develop in the future?
First of all, in the medical field, with the industry optimization in the medical field and the promotion of DRG/DIP score payment and other policies, it will certainly make the entire supply chain in the medical field a huge shock. Huge changes also contain no small opportunities, with the medical field to reduce costs and increase efficiency of the industry, there will be more management needs, and the application of RFID will gradually be widely infiltrated into the various segments of the medical field.
Second, in the medical field, there will be many new opportunities and needs in the future. From the development of the industry in recent years, it can be found that markets such as blood bag management and high-value consumables management are emerging markets in the past five years. In the medical field, there are still many management needs, which need iot enterprises to actively explore. According to the survey of AIoT Star Chart Research Institute, there is also a certain demand for RFID technology in the markets of medical waste management, special surgical material management, surgical instrument management, surgical gown cycle management, container management, etc., but there is no relatively perfect solution on the market at present, or the solution is concentrated in overseas, most of these markets are worth exploring.
This paper is from Ulink Media, Shenzhen, China, the organizer of IOTE EXPO (IoT Expo in China)
