An RFID solution for enhancing inpatient medication safety with real-time verifiable grouping-proof

•Grouping-proof security analysis.•Real-time verifiable grouping-proof.•Suitable for safe drug administration and drug package.

PurposeThe occurrence of a medication error can threaten patient safety. The medication administration process is complex and cumbersome, and nursing staffs are prone to error when they are tired. Proper Information Technology (IT) can assist the nurse in correct medication administration.MethodWe review a recent proposal [15] regarding a leading-edge solution to enhance inpatient medication safety by using RFID technology. The proof mechanism is the kernel concept in their design and worth studying to develop a well-designed grouping-proof scheme. Other RFID grouping-proof protocols [17], [18], [19], [20] and [21] could be similarly applied in administering physician orders. We improve on the weaknesses of previous works and develop a reading-order independent RFID grouping-proof scheme in this paper.ResultIn our scheme, tags are queried and verified under the direct control of the authorized reader without connecting to the back-end database server. Immediate verification in our design makes this application more portable and efficient and critical security issues have been analyzed by the threat model.ConclusionOur scheme is suitable for the safe drug administration scenario and the drug package scenario in a hospital environment to enhance inpatient medication safety. It automatically checks for correct drug unit-dose and appropriate inpatient treatments.