In this, instead of tapping to instantly configure settings on your phone, you use NFC as a no-fuss way to configure a portable digital X-ray unit as you move it through a hospital and get it to link up with different patients' electronic medical records or set it to transfer images to a nearby laptop or workstation.

"The basic application is to use an NFC tag attached to the [X-ray] camera or other portable medical device that needs to transmit data to a patient record," Louis Modell, vice president of ID infrastructure with Identive, told DOTmed News. "An Identive USB Contactless NFC reader is attached to a laptop or desktop computer. Tapping the reader to the tag causes the pairing of the WiFi, or Bluetooth between the devices.”

Identive's system

Identive, based in Santa Ana, Calif., was formed from the 2010 marriage of SCM Microsystems, a contactless and contact-based smart card reader technology and solutions company, and Bluehill ID, an RFID group focused on contactless and identity management technologies. Identive is an OEM supplier of NFC tags and readers to WPG, which will be offering the service to customers once the pilot project wraps up.

As Modell explains it, the system would work as follows: an NFC tag is attached to a portable digital radiography unit. The DR equipment is then brought into an examination room, and a workstation, laptop or other device with a reader is "tapped" against the X-ray unit. This instantly configures the room's WiFi to link the IP address of the X-ray unit to the laptop or device. It can also pair imaging studies being done to a patient's medical record.

The NFC technology is not actually used to transmit images, Modell says, as it's too slow. Instead, it's merely a protocol that changes the settings and reconfigures connections to let the X-ray unit transmit the images over the local wireless network. But it does away with the hassle of requiring radiographers to manually alter settings every time they want to tie an image to a patient's record or send it to a specific device.

"Reconfiguring Bluetooth...reconfiguring Wi-Fis and having it transfer to that particular [system] - that would be a nightmare," Modell says. "Everybody can tap, that's the great thing about NFC."

Pilot project running now

The price of the actual NFC readers is quite low -- Identive's SCL3711 NFC readers retail for about $39 -- but the cost of the system, likely turnkey and set up by WPG, isn't known yet. The pilot project, which only started late last year, already has "thousands" of units rolled out, Modell said, but he doesn't know when it will be commercially available.

More Industry Headlines