AT&T unveiled a complete portfolio of RFID services for healthcare providers this week that it says will enable hospitals to use a Web browser to track equipment, patients and devices.

Although RFID is far from ubiquitous in hospitals nationwide, it has become an increasingly common technology for healthcare providers. Massachusetts General Hospital, for instance, uses RFID to keep track of blood transfusions. The St. Clair Hospital in Pittsburgh, meanwhile, puts RFID tags on patients’ bracelets and nurses’ ID cards. John Regan, AT&T’s vice president for business marketing, says that the company is aiming to deliver a comprehensive service package that can track everything from patents to infusion pumps to wheelchairs to laptops.

"Healthcare organizations can now turn for the first time to a network services company to meet all of their RFID needs for products and services,” he says. “Our RFID solutions help healthcare professionals and organizations make the most of their resources.”

AT&T’s RFID system works through a Wi-Fi network that’s capable of tracking any RFID tag anywhere in the hospital. The company’s RFID tags send regular signals to the network, thus enabling anyone with access to the central hospital Web browser to track them. According to an AT&T market brief tags cost between $35 to $40 each, while replacement batteries for the tags cost between $5 and $7.

Michael Liard, a research director at ABI Research, which covers RFID-related issues, says he’s hopeful that having a major player such as AT&T step into the RFID healthcare market will help spread the technology to more hospitals.

Liard says that he’s “cautiously optimistic” that RFID will soon become more common in the healthcare market, noting that hospitals dealing with tight budgets “might not have RFID at the top of their lists” of priorities.

A survey released this summer by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) reinforces Liard’s point that the healthcare market for RFID is still in its early stages. According to the survey, 76% of CHIME members said they were not considering installing RFID in their facilities, while only 4% said they were already using it.