Once relegated to tracking large hospital equipment, RFID is starting to become more mainstream in life sciences packaging. Here, Melissa Griffen profiles how Fresenius sought to add RFID for traceability on vials to meet customer wishes. Key to the project’s success was using GS1 standards. Griffen also discusses some lessons learned during implementation.
Fresenius Kabi–a healthcare company that specializes in lifesaving medicines and technologies for infusion, transfusion and clinical nutrition–was approached three years ago by many of its customers (hospitals and pharmacies) about implementing RFID tracking on medication inventory, which they had been adding manually–a time-consuming and tedious process. Fresenius Kabi’s customers had found RFID tracking to be more accurate than barcodes, allowing them to scan many drugs at once, more easily track expiry dates, and better maintain tighter inventory levels. Healthcare Packaging’s two-part series on RFID implementation at Allegheny Health Network goes into further depth of the interest in RFID from a distributor perspective.
