Transforming Healthcare Through RAIN RFID Technology
At Impinj we enjoy close working relationships with our technology partners. MEPS Real-Time, Inc. is a solution provider in the healthcare market. Their Intelliguard® line of drug and medication management solutions uses Impinj Monza tag ICs and Speedway readers to help hospital pharmacies prevent errors and operate more efficiently.
At Impinj we enjoy close working relationships with our technology partners. MEPS Real-Time, Inc. is a solution provider in the healthcare market. Their Intelliguard® line of drug and medication management solutions uses Impinj Monza tag ICs and Speedway readers to help hospital pharmacies prevent errors and operate more efficiently. Paul Elizondo is the VP of Research and Development for MEPS Real-Time, Inc., and Chairman of the RAIN Alliance Healthcare Workgroup.
Transforming Healthcare Through RAIN Technology
When our partners at Impinj invited me to participate in this guest blog, I was more than happy to oblige. I am privileged to be in a position to see firsthand how RFID technology is having a dramatic and positive impact on the healthcare industry. As active members of the RAIN RFID Alliance, Impinj and MEPS Real-Time, Inc. (MEPS®) work together closely to develop innovative solutions that advance healthcare operations, increase efficiency and improve patient care.
At MEPS®, we pride ourselves on leveraging RAIN RFID technology and innovation to enhance the safety and efficiency of multifaceted pharmaceutical inventory challenges – with specific focus on the processes involved in managing hospital drug inventories.
As the vice president of R&D at MEPS®, I can tell you that developing solutions for the highly regulated healthcare industry and the unique use cases involved in complex medication inventory management, is a very rigorous and selective endeavor. Because of the nature of the clients we serve and the associated significance of quality and safety to their end users (patients), we rely exclusively on proven technology and components in building our solutions. Our clients and the patients they serve require the best of the best – reliability, accuracy and efficiency - which is why we choose to partner with Impinj.
Creating a Competitive Advantage for Customers
MEPS® is known for developing innovative medication error prevention systems – in fact, the MEPS name is an acronym for Medication Error Prevention Systems. Our suite of Intelliguard® RFID Solutions measurably improve the quality of patient care while also reducing the cost of providing that care. Improving quality of care while decreasing cost is the extraordinary challenge facing healthcare, and our partnership with Impinj and RAIN RFID has been, and continues to be, an integral part of our success.
Currently more than 300 hospitals in North America trust Intelliguard® RFID Solutions with Impinj RAIN technology inside. Because Intelliguard® RFID Solutions are specifically designed to meet the unique needs of hospital and healthcare pharmaceutical inventory challenges they offer several benefits:
- Increased speed and unprecedented accuracy in reading, tracking and locating drugs
- Significant time and cost savings throughout the drug management and distribution process
- Peace of mind in having selected the most advanced RFID technology solutions on the market – utilizing the unique intellectual property and expertise that MEPS® engineers bring to the market combined with the highest performing ICs (integrated circuits) from Impinj
Intelliguard RFID® With Impinj, Impacting Hospitals Together
The synergy between the custom-designed Intelliguard RFID® antenna systems and high quality Impinj readers enables us to create a reliable system for precisely and accurately identifying large numbers of RFID tags on small medications and in tight spaces. This is a critical requirement in healthcare applications and specifically when managing pharmaceutical inventory, where hundreds of RFID-tagged items (often small vials) reside in small enclosures and are difficult to read.
A prime example of meeting this important requirement with state-of-the-art technology is the new Intelliguard® Linked Visibility Inventory System™ (LVIS™), which combines secure in-room storage and access to medications and narcotics with true RFID-automated data collection. The Intelliguard® LVIS™ offers both a small physical footprint and a clinical workflow that does not distract or delay from patient care – two critical considerations in any operating room environment. The combination of simple anesthesiologist workflow in the OR and accurate real-time inventory data in the pharmacy is truly unique.
Research has shown that hospitals that use RFID to automate, validate and manage drug inventories reduce the risk of human error from their drug distribution processes, enable efficiency in workflows, offer data to enable evidence-based purchasing and stocking decisions, and most importantly, increase patient safety.
In short, RAIN RFID is changing the way pharmaceutical distribution processes are managed and Intelliguard® RFID Solutions by MEPS Real-Time, Inc. combined with Impinj, are on the forefront of the most advanced RFID applications in healthcare. To learn more about how RFID is being used in healthcare, and how Intelliguard® with Impinj RAIN technology is impacting the ROI of hospital pharmacies nationwide, read the Intelliguard® Solution Brief.
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Wednesday, February 15, 2017
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Elizondo
Guest Author - MEPS Real-Time, Inc. Vice President of Research and Development
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