Focus on Pharma & Healthcare

RFID is not just for supply chain applications anymore. Significant investment has gone into making the technology practical, cost-efficient and easy-to-use, especially in embedded applications. Embedded RFID has become a game-changing technology that medical manufacturers and healthcare providers are using to satisfy some of their most pressing needs.

Today’s challenges

Medical manufacturers continually face a conflicting set of challenges: to increase safety and revenue while decreasing costs. More specifically, these challenges include: creating inventory visibility – making sure that healthcare providers have the right products at the right place at the right time and avoiding overstocking, spoilage and shrinkage; disposables counterfeiting – protecting authentic disposables against counterfeits and the resulting threats to diagnosis/treatment reliability and eroded recurring revenues; patient safety – continually improving the quality of patient care through better process reliability and proper device configuration to drive brand equity, increased revenue, and minimize legal liability. Medication errors, for example, rank among the most common medical errors and harm at least 1.5 million people every year resulting in approximately 7,000 fatalities. The extra hospital-related costs of treating these injuries, moreover, conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year.

Embedded RFID is poised to address these challenges. When integrated into medical device manufacturers’ existing, new and developing product lines, embedded RFID now enables medical and healthcare solutions through supporting applications and some very innovative solutions.

Embedded RFID

Supply chain applications that demand large, powerful dock-door readers have dominated the RFID discussion for over ten years. These readers are expensive and, as such, low in number. Embedded RFID departs from this paradigm by espousing tiny readers that are inexpensive enough to be embedded in thousands of objects - RFID everywhere. It provides everyday products and objects used in medical scenarios with the ability to interact with other inanimate objects - thus allowing for automation and information exchange.

Typical information exchanges (questions and answers) to be made in a healthcare management situation might be; where is piece of equipment X? When should its use be billed? Is this disposable counterfeit? Was the test delivered correctly? Is the correct blood being given to the transplant patient?

Usually these decisions are made by nurses, doctors and attendants and as such, are both expensive and prone to error. Many such decisions are actually very mechanical and can be made faster and with more accuracy by an RFID reader.

In each of these cases, information can be fed back to a central processing system where additional intelligence can provide information about the performance of the RFID system. When did the door open? When did the transfusion commence? When should the medical supplies be restocked? Was the analyzer utilized within the expiration date? This could be vital data in any of these applications. Once objects are embedded with RFID they gain a level of intelligent communication that is not only unprecedented, it is unparalleled.

SkyeTek’s embedded RFID solutions offer new opportunities to reduce errors and improve patient safety while simultaneously increasing efficiency thus reducing costs, particularly in the areas of inventory management, disposables authentication and configuration, and patient management. SkyeTek also offers professional services to assist with tag selection, module integration, antenna design and tuning, and regulatory certification.

Inventory management

Expired reagents, empty shelves, misplaced product, and missing inventory are significant challenges in any medical environment. The inability to track and manage individual items can mean inadequate care and lower patient satisfaction. Facilities and vendors need insight to the location and current state of inventory at the item-level. Success here will facilitate billing, overstocking, accountability and elimination of expired stock.

Inventory management is best exemplified through consigned inventory in a smart-cabinet. Take, for instance, an orthopedic implant manufacturer who has arranged to sell their implants on consignment at a hospital. Because they only get paid when the product is used and reported, they experience a significant lag between usage and revenue and high carrying costs. Compound this with lost revenue due to misplaced product and high stocking costs associated with manual inventory checking, and it is no surprise that most large distributors and manufacturers are looking for a way to obtain automated, real-time inventory and order placement. Such a company would acquire a customized, secure cabinet embedded with an RFID reader responsible for storing and cataloging the implants. In addition to tracking what implants were used, the reader would also verify and record the identity of any individual accessing the unit.

With an internet backhaul to the manufacturer’s order and fulfillment system, the hospital is assured they will have the right product at the right time, while the manufacturer can bill immediately upon product retrieval. This scenario also works for Hospitals who own their own inventory such as surgical supplies and other consumables.

With embedded RFID, manufacturers and hospitals alike are able to streamline the management of consigned and stocked inventory. Much of the press has focused on Hospitals retrofitting their stocked inventory and back-office with RFID-enabled shelves capable of tracking cases and pallets while overlooking the value RFID brings to the manufacturers themselves. By embedding RFID into custom-built cabinets stocked with supplies and placed within hospitals, manufacturers now have a consignment inventory management option that offers just-in-time-inventory, real-time reporting and real-time billing.

Disposables authentication and configuration

Counterfeiting is one of the most significant sources of loss in the medical and healthcare device sectors. In these two sectors, counterfeit items can lead to injury and, in some cases, fatality.

For medical devices the greatest threat to profits comes not from the counterfeiting of the original devices but to recurring revenue streams driven by disposable reagents, samples, media, etc.. Additionally, counterfeit drugs are predicted to present a $68 billion annual problem by 2009. Device configuration is the second benefit of embedding RFID into products that either utilize disposables or require intricate setup. The US Institute of Medicine estimates preventable medical errors cost 17 billion dollars annually. Part of this is due to improper device operation. Embedded RFID works in diagnostic and healthcare equipment to guarantee the equipment’s proper operation and setup – device manufacturers can prescribe how a particular sample is to be obtained or how to set-up and operate diagnostic equipment.

By embedding RFID directly into medical devices and healthcare delivery systems, manufacturers can foil counterfeiters and secure recurring revenue streams thus reclaiming lost revenue, protecting brand integrity, improving product safety and limiting legal liability.

Embedded RFID works wherever a device requires a disposable. Take for instance a urinalysis device manufacturer who wants to secure a recurring revenue stream by guaranteeing only its own reagents are used in the system. By embedding a RFID reader directly in the machine itself and tagging its branded reagents with an encrypted, unique ID, the manufacturer can assure that the machine will only operate if the consumable is valid and within expiration.

Patient management

Hospital administrators are constantly searching for ways to improve patient safety and provide a quality medical experience, while simultaneously managing costs. Embedded RFID provides the technology to recognize a patient and her relevant medical information to ensure the products and services to be delivered are both correct and acceptable to the patient. This can enable increased patient satisfaction, reduced complaints and claims, enhanced service provider integrity and automated (so more cost-effective) service provision.

A patient safety system that automates an error-prone manual process, in this case increasing accuracy in the blood transfusion process, is an example of an embedded RFID for patient management. With over 50 million blood units transfused worldwide, human errors result in numerous injuries and deaths.

SkyeTek designed a system for a leading transfusion device manufacturer to ensure patient safety in this process. Before receiving a transfusion, the patient is provided with an RFID-enabled wristband that identifies his blood type. The technician uses a hand-held reader that identifies the patient’s blood type and then scans the RFID tag on the blood bag. If a match exists, the reader instructs the automated valve on the blood bag to begin the blood transfusion. In this example RFID readers are embedded both in the transfusion valve as well as the handheld.

RFID priorities

The primary objective with embedded RFID is top-line enhancement such as increased safety for providers and patients, new revenue, increased productivity, inventory visibility and improved product security. Embedded RFID delivers security, inventory management, access control, and personalized patient experiences. Unlike supply chain management solutions, embedded scenarios require intimate knowledge of the environment to optimize the return on investment. Choosing a reader provider with a proven track record of integration is the key to succeeding with embedded RFID.

Medical OEMs and product designers have a timely opportunity to innovate with embedded RFID before it is saturated through all products. By incorporating RFID as a feature into new and existing products right now, companies can gain the product differentiation and competitive advantage that RFID-enabled features and functions impart.