Pharmaceutical companies add UHF RFID tags to products for hospitals

Pharmaceutical company fagron sterile services (FSS) said that from February 2022, RFID technology will be applied to some disposable drugs for customers in the medical industry. After adopting the RFID system from kitcheck, the hospital can automatically obtain data about these products, track inventory, expiration date and recall.

At FSS's manufacturing base in Wichita, Kansas, by embedding UHF RFID tags into its selected product tags, it can better provide customers with more automated drug inventory management solutions.

Glen olsheim, vice president of business and new product development of FSS, said that the benefit for people who track products through RFID for the first time will be higher accuracy in managing inventory, identifying expiration dates and improving the inventory of customers in the medical industry. At the same time, RFID tags have been applied to the products received by the hospital, which can save manual operation.

Generally, the compound pharmacy will combine, remix or change the active ingredients and additives of standard drugs according to the specific needs of patients. However, the facility designated 503B (terms of outsourced site formulation) has a much larger scope of operation and follows standards to validate each process according to current good production practices.

FSS is a 503B outsourcing organization registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It mainly provides sterile drugs, including ready to use intravenous infusion bags and syringes for ophthalmology, dialysis and urology for pain relief and other treatments. It entered the American compound drug market in 2010 and sold products directly to hospitals or doctors.

Olsham explained that FSS provides drugs to millions of patients around the world every year. Recently, some of the company's customers requested that passive UHF RFID tags be built into the product tags, so that when the hospital receives drugs, these tags can be automatically read through the RFID scanning station of kit check (commonly known as "blue box").

Some medical institutions refuse to use FSS products only because it does not apply RFID tags.

Lori Murphy, portfolio director of kit check, pointed out that the application of RFID technology in hospitals is growing. In fact, so far, the growth of medical institutions has exceeded the application rate of pharmaceutical companies. Some hospitals are manually labeling RFID tags because it is difficult to find compound drug manufacturers who incorporate RFID tags into their products. This is a time-consuming process that may slow down the work of medical professionals and reduce efficiency.

"There is a complete workflow for manually applying these tags in the hospital. Although it is very time-consuming, it must still be completed, because not every commodity has RFID tags." Murphy said.

FSS began to work with kit check to create solutions in 2020. Olsham said, "The goal is very clear. We really believe in RFID technology. Our goal is to make customers work more efficiently, and RFID plays a very important role in improving their efficiency. Without this technology, there may be all kinds of mistakes, such as selecting the wrong drugs, labeling the wrong labels, and using expired drugs by mistake, resulting in unnecessary waste To health risks. These challenges span the entire industry. "

Identifying and distinguishing products such as deoxyepinephrine, epinephrine and ephedrine can be a human error, although these drug names are familiar to fast-moving medical industry users or pharmacists. "You always run the risk that one of them may be confused or misread," olsham said In addition, there is the challenge of identifying the number of products. The anesthesiologist may not have the opportunity to check the milliliters of a specific unit again or to confirm whether they match the kit required for a specific operation.

Drug error identification and patient care are the first priorities of FSS. However, the company also wants to ensure that its customers have access to inventory data to help identify items that need to be replenished or used before maturity. RFID provides an effective solution.

With the deployment of new technologies, FSS will apply RFID product tags created by its tag converter. The unique ID number encoded on each RFID tag will be associated with data such as validity period, national drug code and serial number, which will be stored in kit check's cloud software.

FSS is marking the 10 most commonly used prescription drugs in the operating room for customers using kit check technology. When filling syringes on the assembly line, those syringes for RFID tags will be transferred to a dedicated conveyor belt. FSS installs an RFID reading tunnel with built-in Impinj reader at the end of each assembly line or conveyor belt, which can be easily moved according to production needs. The labeled product is packaged in a box or bag, and then the reader asks the label of each drug and scans the bar code on its package to associate a specific package with a specific product.

This information can be compared with data indicating what products should be included in each package. Kit check's software then identifies whether there is a product packaging error - for example, whether the syringe is missing. When the hospital receives the product, they can read the label through the scanning station and automatically access the relevant data. They can also use the label to confirm when the drug is transported to the operating room or other areas, so as to ensure that the drug will not be transported to the wrong patient or used after expiration.

Olsham recalls that building RFID functionality in the manufacturing process requires some deployment. "Pharmaceutical manufacturers know that this is an extremely complex production process, which is in sharp contrast to more standard manufacturing. Each operation is unique, and each batch of new drugs needs an interdisciplinary team to deal with it."

With regard to building RFID functionality into the product line, the company chose to retain all its existing drug assembly methods and have RFID specific post production steps.

In the long run, FSS hopes to exchange data with hospital pharmacies in order to have an in-depth understanding of the consumption rate of drugs and when they need to be supplemented. Olsham explained that FSS can use this data to more proactively provide the necessary products. "Working with kit check, our sales team can more actively track orders and confirm whether the ordered inventory can meet customers' needs, which helps us maintain the production line and ensure effective service to customers."

Finally, Murphy hopes that RFID technology can further realize the automation of single product identification in the supply chain. For example, pharmaceutical manufacturers are interested in using RFID to prevent drug transfer. If the wholesaler or distributor reads the label, the pharmaceutical manufacturer will be able to confirm that the drug is delivered to the target customer.

For FSS, the implementation of RFID will better serve existing customers and attract new customers. "This will make our customers safer and more efficient. And we've been waiting too long because we don't have the technology and miss a lot of opportunities to get new customers." Olsham said that the proportion of customers who buy FSS syringes and label them manually is very high. "So we need to take improvement measures... The point is that this technology must be worth it."