# RFID Technology for Management and Tracking: e-Health Applications
## 2 System Architecture
### RFID Software
Hospitals including e-health procedures usually provide mobile devices (such as smartphones, tablets) to their employees, giving them access to real-time information about patients, supplies, etc. In this regard, mobile applications for these devices have been implemented to make easier the visualization of the information and the collecting of inputs. Furthermore, these devices can be connected to the hospital wireless LAN to access different information systems (such as the RFID system database), thus avoiding the need for additional network infrastructure. Figure 5 illustrates two basic functionalities of the proposed mobile application. Figure 5a corresponds to user mode functionality. In this configuration, the mobile application shows those items considered \"active\" within one of the coverage areas of the RFID system (that is, _timeCount_ > 0). The list of active items is periodically refreshed (controlled by the variable _REFRESH_TIME_APP_). Besides, the user can manually request an update of this list (Figure 5a, function _updateList_). Every time the list is updated, the application checks if there was an update in the event associated to each active item and, if so, the application checks if there is an action required, whose type will depend on the event and the kind of detected item. To illustrate this, let us suppose that a box containing ibuprofen has to be administered to the patient in room 312. First, this item is detected in the hallway (event: \"detected on hallway\"). Later, a nurse goes into room 312 carrying the box of ibuprofen, so when the box is within the coverage area of the RFID antenna located in room 312, the event in the system database is updated to \"detected in room 312\". Then, taking into account the event (\"detected in room 312\") and the item (\"ibuprofen\"), the system checks if there is an action that should be performed (for example, \"administer medicine to patient\"). If so, the system will require the end-user to complete the action, e.g., by displaying a message in the mobile application (together with another kind of alarm such as smartphone vibration  
Figure 4: Scheme of the connection between the RFID antenna, the RFID reader, the computer controlling the RFID reader, and the system database. Pseudo-code illustrating how the database is updated every time a RFID tag is read is outlined (information associated to the database is highlighted in green, while inputs from RFID reader are highlighted in blue). or short ring). Once the end-user completes the required task, the action associated to the item is updated. Moreover, the mobile application can be used for administration purposes. In this case, the user must log in as administrator. Three basic actions are considered (see Figure 5b): (i) register a new medical item in the database; (ii) remove an existing medical item; and (iii) update the information associated to the item (e.g., action to be done when a certain event happens). Of course, more complex functionalities can be added, but these are beyond the scope of the proof-of-concept presented in this contribution.