New Gloucester, Me. – The Federal Drug Administration paved the way for RFID – radio frequency identification – technology use in healthcare earlier this month just as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found itself knee-deep in its bar-coding rollout.

Project leaders took a deep breath and then decided to go ahead with their plans.

"One of the issues we have...is it the wrong time to do bar-coding?" said Naomi Rapoza, clinical applications team leader, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, part of Boston-based Partners Healthcare Systems. Rapoza spoke to a group of about 60 healthcare IT professionals who met here Nov. 19.

Rapoza was one of several speakers who told their IT stories at the HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) New England chapter/Healthcare Financial Management Association conference "Healthcare Information Technology: Real Life Successes & Lessons Learned."

"We're going to go forward," Rapoza said. "We just want to make sure of flexibility. If the technology changes, you want to be able to replace it."

Rapoza noted that the way RFID is being used today is "very different" from bar coding. Vendors are still in beta stages with RFID technology, she said.

On Nov. 15, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would step up its efforts to improve the safety and security of the nation's drug supply through the use of RFID technology.

In a related action, the FDA announced that it is creating an internal RFID workgroup whose charge is to monitor adoption of RFID in the pharmaceutical supply chain, proactively identifying regulatory issues raised by the use of this new technology, and to develop straightforward processes for handling those issues. FDA believes that the workgroup will improve communication with members of the supply chain on RFID-related issues and should facilitate both the performance of pilot studies and the collection of data needed to formulate policy.

RFID is a technology that uses electronic tags on product packaging to allow manufacturers and distributors to more precisely keep track of drug products as they move through the supply chain. It is similar to the technology used for tollbooth and fuel purchasing passes.

One of the key differences between RFID and bar codes is that RFID eliminates the need for line-of-sight reading that is typical of bar-code reading. RFID scanning can be done at greater distances than bar-code scanning. High frequency RFID systems offer transmission ranges of more than 90 feet.