RFID Empowers Healthcare Experts in Clinical Laboratories and Beyond
Advancing Healthcare Through Digital Transformation
Our healthcare systems and their vital supply chains have proven vulnerable, often burdened by underinvestment and exposed weaknesses during critical times. This white paper explores how proven technologies can transform sample and inventory management, quality control, and supply chain performance for clinical laboratories, hospitals, and medicine suppliers.
Digital Identification: A Foundational Shift
The healthcare industry is increasingly adopting digital identification and process automation to directly improve patient care, reduce costs, and alleviate administrative burdens on staff.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) stands at the forefront of these technologies. Used across various industries from retail to logistics, RFID tags generate accurate data, unlocking insights and driving informed decision-making. Unlike traditional barcodes, RFID offers a hundredfold increase in item scanning speed, capable of automatically identifying multiple tags simultaneously without requiring a line of sight.
RFID systems are built for effortless and fast tracking. They consist of tags and readers with applications to energize tags and collect data. This collected data is then consolidated to a central server or cloud, which also monitors system health. Specialized RFID applications integrate with critical business systems such as LIMS, ERP, WMS, and Business Intelligence suites. This technology is seeing rapid growth in healthcare, with digital identification label usage forecasted to grow at nearly 30% annually, as users recognize its power in streamlining supply chains and optimizing labor.
The True Cost of Lost Inventory
The financial and operational impact of lost or mismanaged inventory in healthcare is substantial. Annually, an estimated 8% of pharmaceutical stock globally expires or is discarded, equating to a staggering USD 163 billion financial cost. Studies in other industries highlight this disparity: 99.9% order accuracy with RFID versus 69% error rates in inbound orders without it. These errors lead to “workarounds” and ripple effects of unseen costs.
Creating a system with accurate, real-time data from production, distribution centers, healthcare facilities and to the end consumer will enable a more sustainable and efficient industry, eradicating wasted pharmaceuticals.
Item-level digital identification minimizes waste by providing the hard data needed for informed decision-making. In laboratories, RFID simplifies scanning, eliminating the need for close line-of-sight reads and reducing manual errors. This saves time and allows staff to focus on core tasks.
Future-Proofing Healthcare Systems
The past few years have underscored that delivering quality and efficient healthcare requires rethinking support and tools for highly qualified staff. For hospitals and their partners, digital identification technologies create a continuous cycle of improvement, driving a flywheel of benefits:
- Inventory Management: Real-time tracking of medical supplies, ensuring essential items are always on hand.
- Patient Experiences & Safety: RFID can monitor patients, enhancing safety and comfort by ensuring correct medications and treatments.
- Asset Tracking: Expensive medical equipment can be readily located, reducing theft or misplacement.
- Data & Insights: Automatic and accurate data capture replaces manual entry, ensuring precise patient records, sample data, and inventory levels.
- Efficiency in Laboratories: RFID streamlines processes, eradicates errors, and automates updates to Laboratory Information Management Systems.
- Supply Chain Transparency: End-to-end product visibility ensures medicines and equipment are stored and transported under appropriate conditions, maintaining efficacy.
- Anti-counterfeiting: RFID tags can authenticate products, preventing counterfeit medicines from reaching patients.
- Regulatory Compliance: Accurate tracking facilitates adherence to regulatory standards for storage, use, and disposal of medical items.
Transformative approaches begin with progressive leadership. Early adopters of digital identification are realizing benefits beyond initial goals, leveraging RFID to drive best-in-class efficiency, service quality, and informed decision-making, staying ahead in the digital transformation.
Understanding the root causes of shipment inaccuracies and the appropriate technological approaches is critical for supply chain optimization. Download the full white paper by filling the form below to explore detailed solutions, case studies, and a comprehensive analysis of how RFID is revolutionizing healthcare logistics and operations.
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Unlock expert insights into optimizing your laboratory and supply chain processes. Our team has put together this white paper to help you understand how track and trace systems can be applied to enhance efficiency and sustainability in your operations.
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