The picture you see to the right is a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) device that has been produced for the medical market. These devices can be implanted under a patients skin providing a secure reliable method of identifying patients. Traditionally this has been done by a wrist band however the possibilities for mistaken identity are quite real. The RFID device provides a guarantee of the patients identity even when they are unconscious.

Verimed, the company that markets these devices has donated several hundred of these devices, along with scanners, to Harrison, Mississippi to aid County Coroner Gary T. Hargrove in the unpleasant but necessary task of coordinating the hundreds of corpses that he now has responsibility for. He says

It's better enabled me to do my job as the coroner — tracking and getting people's loved ones back to them quickly/

The device is placed under the skin of the corpse providing a secure way to track each body. It may seem gruesome but theere is complex logistics in managing something as emotive as hundreds of dead, each of which has grieving relatives. These RFID devices are saving unnecessary distress through misidentification of bodies.


source Wired