How RFID is used in healthcare and pharma

A rising need for real-time visibility

In the past five years, the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors have faced significant supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic, political conflicts, and economic instability. With ongoing uncertainty, these industries are adjusting to a ‘new normal’ likely to persist for the foreseeable future. Additionally, as Western populations continue to age, there is an increasing demand for elderly care—while trained staff to provide it becomes scarcer. This shift highlights a growing need for automation in quality control, instrument tracking, and supply chain management to ensure efficiency and maintain standards.

In our white paper we explore how proven technologies are enabling clinical laboratories, hospitals, and medicine suppliers to transform their sample and inventory management as well as quality control along with supply chain performance

For decades, manual scanning, particularly of barcode labels, has been the standard for instrument, sample and inventory identification in the healthcare sector. However, challenges related to barcodes are known and offer potential improvements with RFID:

• Lost inventory: On average every year 8% of pharmaceutical stock either expires or is discarded, unique coding on the packaging (such as RFID) improves the management of stock significantly and thus has a direct impact on stock. 
• End-to-End Traceability : Currently, vials, syringes, and small bottles are tracked at the batch level during production. Introducing RFID at the item level would allow each vial, bottle, or syringe to be individually monitored throughout the production and supply chain. This shift from batch to item-level tracking would provide greater traceability, accuracy, and control over each unit, enhancing quality assurance and regulatory compliance.

Learn how RFID transforms work, quality and asset management in healthcare? Download our White Paper today!