2021 HEALTHCARE PRODUCT HALL OF FAME
“Since [then], bar codes have evolved to become an essential data carrier to provide track and traceability for products as they move through supply chains,” Fernandez said. “Today, bar codes can hold product identification and essential information such as lot and batch numbers, expiration dates and other pertinent details to assist in tracking the product’s entire life cycle. This data is essential to healthcare in an increasingly complex supply chain and patient care system, helping prevent errors and assure availability of medical products when and where they are needed.” Fernandez acknowledges the slower pace of bar code progress in healthcare versus grocery and retail.
“The healthcare industry did not begin broadly adopting bar codes until the early 2000s,” she noted. “Recognizing the need for better, more reliable and more robust data to help manage pharmaceutical and medical device supplies, healthcare stakeholders are now widely using global standards and barcodes in their daily operations. Today, even the patients are identified by bar codes on the bracelets they wear in a hospital – helping to increase safety, ensure they receive the right medi- cation or product, and to populate health records with details about the products that are used in their care.”
In fact, the bar code has been much more widely applied across healthcare to improve operational efficiencies, accuracy and patient safety, according to Fernandez, in that It is used to carry data that uniquely identifies pharmaceutical products and medical devices and to provide additional details about them. “The bar codes can be scanned throughout the supply chain to enhance track and traceability, simplify and expedite recalls where necessary, help identify expired product for removal and more,” she continued. “When the bar codes are also scanned into patients’ electronic health records, follow-up monitoring can be extended to offer better tracking of out- comes, side effects and other information that helps providers understand their effi- cacy and make more informed purchasing decisions for the future.” Government regulations, such as the FDA’s Drug Supply Chain Security Act, or SCS and Unique evice dentifica- tion Rule, or UDI, are driving momentum because they now require standardized bar codes on packaging for prescription medications and medical devices, respec- tively, she added.
The emergence, adoption and imple-
mentation of global data standards for unique identification of products, loca- tions and services underpin bar coding’s
growth, according to Fernandez. Globally recognized standards ensure information contained in a bar code can be scanned, captured and incorporated into diverse data systems utilized by supply chain stakeholders, and understood by all as a common language for organizations to communicate vital information about the products they manufacture, distribute, and use, she added. “Using these standards, the captured data can be shared between organiza- tions throughout the supply chain to help ensure the right product (medication or device) reaches the right patient, at the right time, in the right location and in the right dose or use. We refer to these crucial parameters as the 5 Patient Rights,” Fer- nandez said. “The use of GS1 Standards continues to increase in healthcare partly to support legislative requirements, and overall, to help improve the entire healthcare system’s ability to continually provide the best possible patient care and safety.
Radiofrequency
identification (RFID) in healthcare
KEY SUPPLIERS: CenTrak, GE Healthcare, IDENTI Medical, IOS, Jump Technologies, Stanley Healthcare, TeleTracking, Terso Solutions, Toshiba, Versus, VUEMED
WHY IT MATTERS: Bar coding may have
emerged in healthcare in the mid-1970s, but its “more advanced” younger sibling RFID needed at least another 15 years to place its ag in the sand alongside bar coding among the most forward-thinking of hospital supply chain leaders. “Bar-code scanning and/or RFID serves as the foundation of any modern point-of- use technology,” observed Mike Ferrazzo, Product Manager, Jump Technologies. “It has allowed for a fast, simple and accurate means of recording supply consumption in a hospital. It also has helped improve patient care and safety by reducing the time clinicians have hands on keyboards, while providing more accurate identification of staff, patients, equipment, medications and implants used in a procedure.” Joe Pleshek, President and CEO, Terso Solutions, envisions a bright future for RFID in healthcare.
“RFID has been and will continue to be rapidly adopted in the healthcare market to improve inventory visibility across the supply chain,” Pleshek said. “Enhanced visibility to critical supplies enables each stakeholder to be more efficient, lower costs and ensure patient safety. Tradition-
36 December 2021 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS •
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ally, the management of inventory has been very manual, requiring clinicians to take stock counts, check expiration dates and update software systems as products are being consumed throughout a procedure. “I believe life for clinicians and patient
care already looks a lot different on the other side of RFID inventory manage- ment systems,” he continued. “With this technology, the management of inventory is automated, allowing clinicians to spend their time on providing patient care instead of searching for inventory.”
Today, automation such as RFID are helping to relieve workplace pressure as hospitals deal with labor shortages across the country, according to Pleshek. “From a patient safety perspective,
RFID is ensuring product integrity and chain-of-custody,” he indicated. “Many therapies, specialty pharmaceuticals, and biologics need to be consistently stored at a certain temperature. Terso Solutions’ RFID enabled freezers, refrigerators and cabinets automatically track when a prod- uct or pharmaceutical has been removed from the device, who removed it and if the temperature of the product has been compromised in any way. We are just scratching the surface of the value RFID can bring to our healthcare system.” Regardless of automated tracking modal- ity, adoption and implementation remains a long slow climb. “Hospitals always seem to us an advanced place – it’s true when it comes to clinical innovation,” said Or Lomnitz, Head of Marketing and Strategic Partner- ships, IDENTI Medical (formerly Logi- Tag). “But when it comes to operational processes today there are still administra- tive tasks that are done manually or with outdated technics that consume time away from patient care and fail to give a full business view to the hospital management. “One of the most prominent areas is the management and documentation of medi- cal implants and consumables in operating and procedural rooms,” Lomnitz contin- ued. “Today’s solutions do not provide a satisfactory solution to those unique and stressful environments. As a result, the hos- pital is exposed to risks of patient safety, waste and burnout of the nurses. The core reason is that hospitals find it difficult to capture inventory utilization and trace stock at point of use.
“It leads to uncertainty in inventory available on core areas` shelves,” she said. “For example, it has often happened that expired products have found themselves transplanted into a patient. Or a case of a recalled product that because no digital tracking was done, it was not possible to
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