IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015 - 55

the shared use of an RFID card for close family members. The shared use of an RFID card may not be ideal
for reasons of privacy, but will reduce costs.

added services for scenarios such as nutrition control,
chronic disease prevention and control, individual/
group payments, and employment provision.

Environmental Impact

Author Information

With the reduction of road trips by patients in remote
areas to the central medical facility, there is a potential
upside of the RFID community healthcare scheme in that
it could reduce the carbon footprint due to transportation.
As some of the patients may be traveling as far as 200 km
to a central medical facility, the reduction in the carbon
footprint from reduced travelling can be significant.
In addition, patients are usually accompanied by relatives or friends when visiting a central medical facility,
and these people will also require transportation. The
exact environmental impact may be difficult to fully
quantify. Even if the impact on the environment is not
significant, it will still help to relieve overcrowding in the
already stressed public transportation system in many
developing countries.
RFID cards have a typical usable life of about 10 years.
However, cards may be misplaced or damaged if not
handled correctly. The disposal of RFID tags may create an
environmental issue as they are usually encapsulated in
plastic and are not necessarily biodegradable. A recycling
process should be put in place to collect the cards when
they fail. In addition, it may be prudent to charge a fee for
the cards in order to ensure that patients handle the cards
with due care and cover the material cost for replacement.

Ali Zalzala is with Community Tracks, U.S.A. and with the
Institute of Management Technology, India and UAE.
Email: zalzala@communitytracks.org.
Vivienne Strettle is with KVS Consultancy, UAE. Email:
viv.strettle@kvsconsultancy.com.
Stanley Chia is with Vodafone US, U.S.A. Email: stanley.chia@vodafone.com.
Laura Zalzala is with Murdoch University Dubai, UAE.
Email: laura.zalzala@murdochdubai.ac.ae.

Discussion

[1] S. Chia, A. Zalzala, L. Zalzala, and A. Karimi, "Towards intelligent
technologies for a self-sustainable, RFID-based, decentralized rural
e-health system," IEEE Technology and Society Mag., vol. 32, no. 1,
pp. 36-43, Spr. 2013.
[2] G. Geller and D. Glucklich, Eds., Sustainable Rural and Urban Ecosystems: Design, Implementation and Operation. Springer-Verlag, 2012.
[3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Transport Layer Protocol
Recommendation Formal Specification, Version 1.1, EHR-IIS Interoperability
Enhancement Project, 2014.
[4] Health Level Seven Inc., HL7 Electronic Health Records System Functional Model, Release 1, 2007.
[5] P. M. Diffenderfer and S. El-Assal, Microsoft Dynamics NAV:
Jump Start to Optimization, 2nd ed. Vieweg+Teubner, 2008.
[6] Microsoft Corporation, Healthcare: Improving Operational Efficiency
Through Integrated Business Solutions, Dynamics VAV White Paper, 2006.
[7] Philips Semiconductors, Mifare Functional Specifications, revision 5.1
Data Sheet, May 2001.
[8] Motorola Inc., MC75 Enterprise Digital Assistant: Integrator Guide, 2008.
[9] Cellica Corporation, Cellica Wireless Database Viewer Plus (Enterprise
Edition), Product Version 4.7, 2011.
[10] Carsten Howitz, Qiwi Applications White Paper, ver 2.01, May 2011.
[11] B. Larson, Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft
SQL Server 2008. McGraw-Hill, 2009.
[12] A. Grove and G.A. Berg, Eds., Social Business: Theory, Practice,
and Critical Perspectives. Springer-Verlag, 2014.
[13] O. Morawczynski, "Examining the adoption, usage and outcomes of mobile money services: The case of M-PESA in Kenya,"
Ph.D. thesis, The University of Edinburgh, U.K., 2010.
[14] Community Tracks, Research and Development Activities, communitytracks.org, accessed Dec. 31, 2014.

The bulk of resources put into the solution so far have
been for the back-office clinic system. Based on an
industry standard ERP, the clinic software is customized
to the operations of a clinic and outreach workers. The
ERP facilities allow the integration of transactional data
and inventory data, besides the already existing patient
and medical data.
A flexible RFID tagging system is developed based
on industry standard Mifare HF, and is deployed using
a variety of readers suitable for all computing devices
in clinic as well as in the field. This can be evolved and
customized as the overall system scales in operations.
The mobile design philosophy is the integration of
various platforms running necessary and sufficient apps
(off-the-shelf or custom built). This approach, and the
fact that the entire system's database is SQL based,
allows the use of the solution by an end user regardless
of their level of readiness.
The RFID-ITRM solution facilitates the creation of a
health care based community service ecosystem for
the underserved [14], and further design and development is underway considering the integration with value

MARCH 2015

∕

Acknowledgment
This project started with a sponsorship from the IEEE
as part of the Humanitarian Technology Challenge. The
authors acknowledge the sponsorship of the Vodafone
Americas Foundation and the support of the IEEE Foundation. The Manav Sadhna's team, managed by Viren
Joshi and coordinated by Shirish Dabhi, showed exceptional dedication in supporting the project and serving
the community. The authors acknowledge the various
levels of support from the Board and Directors of the
Institute of Management Technology in both Dubai and
Ghaziabad, and the student contributions during internship projects with the Dual Country Program.

References

IEEE TEchnology and SocIETy MagazInE

http://www.tracks.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015