# LBTM: Listen-before-Talk Protocol for Multiclass UHF RFID Networks
## 6 Hospital Example  
### Background  
For the second example, we focus on the use of RFID in a hospital environment. We have selected this example due to the significant implantation of RFID technologies in the health sector. Different reports have discussed the potential uses in this sector. For example, [PERSON] et al. (2019) cited the following, among other applications:  
* Patient identification;
* Blood samples tracking;
* Security on sensitive surgical equipment and pharmacy;
* Tagging meals to ensure patients get the appropriate diet according to their treatment, allergies, and tastes;
* Laundry service can also be greatly optimized;  
Figure 5: Pareto-front for the trade-off between checking-out and inventory traffic performances for the grocery shop scenario, as a function of \(\Delta\). Each point is the average of 20 simulations. The confidence interval is shown with 95% confidence level. The MSL threshold is 80%.  
* Entrance control.  
More recently, [PERSON] et al. (2017) analyzed the different applications and provided useful references for discussing each of them. The main areas they cover are as follows:  
* Pharmaceutical/blood product distribution and tracking;
* Patient/medical staff identification and tracking;
* Medical asset tracking and locating;
* Implantable device RFID use;
* Other areas (including medical documents and patient records) ([PERSON], 2010).  
Figure 6: Time-evolution of the response time (**left column**), the number of customers in the exit queue (**middle column**), and the inventory ratio (**right column**) for a simulator realization versus \(\Delta\).  
A cost-benefit analysis of some of these applications has been discussed in [38]. Besides, several works have studied how to implement novel applications for the healthcare sector based on RFID. In [39], the authors developed a system for apnea detection based on an unsupervised learning scheme. [PERSON] et al. [40] developed a nonintrusive breath monitoring. In [41], researchers described the design and implementation of cabinets with RFID support to improve the tracking of medical supplies in hospitals. The authors of [42] proposed using RFID for two tasks: (i) management of bottle gas delivery, whose cost can be endorsed to a particular area or another hospital if the patient is transferred; and (ii) tracking ancillaries and surgical instruments, for example, to know when they have been sterilized. Patients tracking has been analyzed in different works such as [43] or [44]. Moreover, different companies like IGSolutions [45] are offering RFID solutions for the inventory and tracking of controlled substances.  
Although promising, certain RFID applications have faced resistance in a hospital setting where their electromagnetic interference could affect normal operation of medical instruments (e.g., [46; 47]). However, despite these issues, RFID technology has great potential in healthcare applications. In this context, it is mandatory to reduce the number of channels and power used by RFID readers to ensure electromagnetic compatibility [38; 48; 49], while the available channel has to be used efficiently among several RFID services.