Newborn babies at Xinhua Hospital will now be given state-of-the-art electronic tags in a pilot scheme.

Designed to streamline medical records, do away with paperwork and avoid identity errors, new babies and their mothers at Xinhua Hospital will be given tags that have a microchip which will contain their complete medical histories and can also tell staff the baby's location.

If the baby is taken from the obstetrics ward without approval, the tag will set off an automatic alarm.

The technology uses radio frequency identification, or RFID, which uses radio waves to identify an object or person.

Doctors and nurses can put data about a mother or baby on the electronic tags and have it transferred immediately to the hospital's central computer.

In practice a mother-to-be who has been admitted to hospital will be given a tag which will stay with her and be updated as she proceeds through medical examinations, delivery and then post-natal care. Almost as soon as the baby is born, it too receives its tag.

Hospital officials said the scheme is still in its pilot stage and there is no time set for the scheme to be used in other hospitals.

"Experts from Shanghai Municipal Information Commission are evaluating the project and will decide what to do next," said official Shi Min.

Other local maternity hospitals said the same system has been used overseas and the authorities should adopt it for domestic use.

In most Chinese hospitals newborn babies have handwritten tags placed on them for identification.

"It is impossible to keep all the relevant information on one chip and hospitals still have to print out their records for the authorities when needed," said Chen Daning from Shanghai Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital. "Moreover electronic medical records cannot be produced as evidence in court."

She said the alarm system could be good for local hospitals which have to guard against babies being mistakenly removed from wards.

"To prevent any mistakes, we have our guards check for the doctor's written approval whenever a baby leaves. Nurses also have to tell the guards before a baby is discharged and the guards will check the baby's ward number and bed number," she said. "The electronic tag system could streamline our work."

(Shanghai Daily August 17, 2007)