What is the importance of RFID systems to hospitals?

Medicine labeling company SchreinerMediPharm cooperated with pharmaceutical solution provider KitCheck to launch technology-based solutions, including Schleiner's customizable RFID tags, KitCheck readers and management software.

　　 This program is designed to help pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and medical personnel automatically track injectable drugs and improve the safety and traceability of injectable drugs from production to hospital pharmacies to the patient's bedside.

　　With this solution, syringes and vials can be attached to Schleiner RFID tags at the production point and read by KitCheck readers in hospitals. When each piece of medicine is removed from the shelf, loaded into the tray or given to the patient, the user can identify the relevant serial number, batch number and expiration date. If the medicine is shown to be expired or replaced, the user will receive an alert before injecting the patient.

Nick Petersen, vice president of development at KitCheck, said that this partnership provides an easy way for two types of stakeholders (pharmaceuticals and hospitals) to use RFID. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, with this solution designed by KitCheck, pharmaceutical manufacturers can receive pre-coded labels for their vials and syringes and associate the labels with certain drugs on the production line in real time.

　　 For hospitals, the KitCheck system provides a solution for reading drug labels and drug tray management after receipt. Hundreds of hospitals in the United States and Canada have implemented the KitCheck system as a drug receiving terminal in their pharmacies. The equipped scanning and reading devices are available in various sizes and can be used in different pharmacy workflows and are connected to KitCheck’s cloud-based software to track inventory and manage kits and trays.

　　Schleiner has provided its pharmaceutical customers with RFID-based NFC and UHF tags. Arne Rehm, product manager for RFID and NFC solutions at Schleiner, said that this latest partnership provides new innovations and the company "has been looking for application cases that can provide value-added services to customers and partners. ".

　　Rem pointed out that although pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies use Schleiner RFID tags to manage the supply chain, there are still challenges in injecting drugs due to the negative impact of liquids on the reading range. Liquids can absorb radio transmissions, which can invalidate tags. Therefore, the company developed a new labeling solution to improve readability. "In particular, the direct integration of UHFinlay into printed labels specifically designed for main containers is an innovation here."

　　 In addition, KitCheck has further developed its reader/writer hardware, even when the label is applied to liquid medicine bottles, the system can also use UHFRFID technology. Traditionally, hospitals that have deployed RFID technology use a conspicuous RFID tag attached to a medicine container, which requires manual labeling. Rem said, "This will no longer be necessary in the future," the company's new RFID tags can be automatically attached to pharmaceutical containers like standard printed labels.

　　With Schleiner tags, pharmaceutical manufacturers or contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) only need one tag to identify products, implement RFID functions, and combine them with other functions in the company's product portfolio. For example, they can use security features to prove infringement and brand protection, manage removable documents, or use centralized racks for infusion bottles that are not suitable for labeling.

　　As part of the partnership, Schleiner received the "KitCheck certification", which means that some of Schleiner's products and solutions are compatible with KitCheck's hardware and software solutions. This further means that Schleiner only uses RFID tags with proper certification on customizable tags.

　　Schleiner also produces specific product labels based on the pharmaceutical company's visual and technical requirements (such as screen printing, flexographic printing or digital printing) and converts them into appropriate RFID tags. Rem explained: "Our customers handle RFID tags as usual, and apply them directly to packaging."

　　For those users who use Schleiner tags and KitCheck's RFID reading function, KitCheck has equipped their production line with an RFID reader to store drug data on the company's single-item BluesightRegistry (cloud-based) service system. The hospital can also access this data. In this way, pre-labeled drugs can be delivered to the pharmacy, and pharmaceutical manufacturers can always know the location and status of each drug.

　　KitCheck RFID-based drug tray processing and inventory tracking solutions are currently used in more than 500 hospitals in the United States and Canada. In the coming months, KitCheck plans to support its first pre-marked universal partnership.

　　 Peterson estimates that the partnership with generic drug manufacturing companies will increase the percentage of products that frequently use RFIDinlay products from 8% this year to 12%, and will rise to 40% in the future. "Here, our cooperation with Schleiner is crucial." Because Schleiner is an important supplier of UHF drug labels, including vials and liquid syringes.

Rem said: "Overall, our goal is to improve the safety of products and patients. The right patients must receive the right medication at the right time and under the right conditions." These solutions will help stakeholders To achieve this goal, while reducing the cost of hospital management systems, such as the cost of manually applying RFID tags to pharmaceutical packaging.

　　 Generally, once the label is coded and placed in the system with a specific product, it can be read at the hospital pharmacy or by the patient's bed. For example, when a pharmaceutical company transfers a product to a hospital, the KitCheck reader can capture the identification number of each label and update the pharmacy’s inventory data; when the drug is loaded into the tray and given to the patient, the KitCheck reader also captures each In addition to displaying the necessary alarms, the tag ID on each pallet can also store and manage these data.

　　Finally, KitCheck brings other solutions with additional functions to the hospital by using its BluesightRegistry. One example of this integrated application currently being developed with partners with "KitCheck certification" is the use of portable or mobile readers to read labels at the patient's bed before injecting drugs.

　　 The final reading can help the medical staff to create a patient observation record in order to see the real-time data of which drugs the patient used. Rem said: "In most cases, this avoids the use of wrong or counterfeit medicines, or refilled containers."

Schleiner tags with KitCheck solution will be supplied to KitCheck new and existing customers.

If you want to know more, our website has product specifications for RFID systems, you can go to ALLICDATA ELECTRONICS LIMITED to get more information