Hi Geoff

The microwave works on 2450MHz and can give you distance to object.

Billy

Just like a microwave oven ... but costing a tad more than £ 30 from Tesco's by the look of it! And those tags (see .pdf) are hardly what you might call little things, are they? Think about how (and where) you are you going to fit one of those to all your favourite medical devices.

Interesting technology, though. It looks like tag battery life is four to five years, and the tag has 8 K of memory. So maybe we could log the kind of data we mentioned before. You know, PM dates and stuff like that.

I wonder what a full implementation (that is, in a typical hospital) would cost? What we need is a trial. How are your finances up there, Billy?

But meanwhile, now I also read that passive radio-frequency tags won't work (that is, cannot be read) when placed on metal. So that means we need active tags, then (as mentioned before).

It seems to me there is far more to all this that meets the eye (as it were). Frankly, I believe that more thought needs to be given to all the radiation (most of it invasive, that is snooping) we already have to put with in our everyday lives, without simply adding to it. I understand that some banknotes now have RFID tags "hidden" in them, for instance. Passive (I presume), but they still will be getting read somewhere (why, I wonder)*. Where's it all going to end? Perhaps people would be more aware of all this if they carried one of these around with them! All these emissions get absorbed by human tissue, do they not (no wonder I'm feeling so rough this morning)!

* The thought occurs that "facial furniture" could be used in a similar fashion. Who knows, maybe it already is! Let's forget ID cards (if we haven't already) and (as Neil has mentioned recently) simply crack on and "chip" everybody! Frankly, with the mind-sets that permeate the "Corridors of Power" these days, I can't really see how we can avoid it.

Hi Geoff

You better watch with this paranoia or you will end up sleeping under a chicken wire screen.

As for the RFID passive would be the best and I am sure that the technology will be available at a reasonable price within a few years. (It will take a few years for the trust to even get anything off the ground anyway)

What's that ... so you reckon my portable Faraday cage is a bit OTT, then?

Meanwhile, has anyone conducted any tests yet with *RFID? Passive versus active tags, how good it works through breeze block, red brick etc., distances and transmitter-receiver (and repeater antennae) positioning ... and all the rest? I can just imagine the "difficulties" in getting such a system commissioned, and up and running. Not to mention how long it would take until ... er, thieves realised how to beat the system (dead-spots et al).

Frankly, I see great scope here for hospitals to spend mega £££'s on installing systems that turn out (yet again?) to be an incomplete answer to an ill-defined problem! That is, buying the "wrong" system, which may very well be obsolete even before it gets commissioned (now, where I have come across that sort of thing before).

Has anyone thought about limited, local systems ... perhaps using more readily available (cheaper, adaptable) technology ... like Bluetooth, for example? Or, put another way, if prototypes were produced, would anybody buy them?

* Should we be using MWID for microwave frequencies?

See to us, we would be looking at logging IN/OUT traffic from an equipment library. Hidden tags, with a hand held scanner all linked to a working equipment management database. Therefore you can tell it is in or out (still leaves the requirement for staff input, but you cant have everything). This way the cost could be kept to a minimum.
I know what you are all thinking why not get the staff to register that they have taken an item and where it has gone. Thats what they would be doing but this is something that works along side, if the computer has'nt registered it being removed then the RFID will, along with a nice still of the culprit.

The other way is like they have in most fridges in hotels, the Led method, you remove it, it registers. (Found out the hard way when I removed everything from a fridge to put my beers in and ended up with everything on the bill. Just adds to your checkout time)

Logging in and out of the Library? Is that all? How disappointing!

In that case, what's wrong with a simple log book ... and (if you need a "secondary backup system", or whatever) ... well, surely you had Tally Tags in the workshop stores up at Spadeadam?

By the way, wouldn't an induction loop built into the door of the Library would be a more "fool-proof" way of going about things? Clocking equipment in and out, that is. Even the best staff in the world will sometimes "forget" to scan, especially when under pressure.

But simply logging in and out is a bit tame, I would have thought. What about locating the device, or at least the status about where it was loaned out to? Back to Tally Tags, I'm afraid.

Sounds like I need to come up there and get these things sorted out for you, Mate! But (before I do that), how does your Library operate ... does the ward collect, or do the (Library) staff deliver?

We haven't got one yet Geoff it's still in the planning stage where it's been for the last five years. I leave you to guess who has been responsible for it!(you did briefly meet him)

How long does it take to "plan" an Equipment Library? Don't tell me "they" are still trying to find a suitable location? For the last five years or so they could have experimented with a "temporary" Library in that building next to you (I guess you know the one I mean). Then, by this time, the art of equipment librarianship might have been well and truly perfected!

Oh, well ... roll on a Happy Retirement, Mate.

Thanks Geoff October 5th is the day.

Just about enough time left to squeeze in setting up the Library, then, Dicky! You know, just to show 'em how it's done, as it were.

So, what's it to be ... drinks in the Mess?