Project Background
RFID can be quite effective at improving efficiency in the medical realm. A strange concept at first glance. With RFID being the new crowd-favorite for asset management, it seems to not have a place in the industry of lifesaving. However, fast and accurate asset management proves to play quite an important role in saving a life. The medical profession quite often involves meeting unpredictable situations with very little advance notice. In an industry like that, any obscurity about current inventory can be the difference between a life saved and a life lost. Whether it be the number of doses of a particular drug or the current whereabouts of a certain tool, the management system must have real-time info on all current assets so it can distribute its supplies accordingly. However, given the emergency of certain situations, it is incredibly inappropriate to require medical professionals to have to
log the information every time something is taken from inventory. Luckily RFID can provide the perfect solution.
Solution Details
With RFID labels becoming cheaper and more reliable every day, their massive advantages in efficiency and performance are starting to be recognized by major players in all different industries. The Medical industry has certainly realized RFID's appeal. With the addition of RFID labels and POSTEK's desktop HF RFID label printer into the system, the issues mentioned above that have been bugging the medical industry for the past couple of decades melted away like they never existed.
Currently, the system is set up so that most of the medical supplies are placed in temperature-controlled environments for proper storage. However, before they enter the storage unit, an HF RFID label is printed with POSTEK's desktop label printer and applied to the item. Before printing, the printer always reads the UID of the label first and feeds it right back to the system, so the management software is always acutely aware of which UID corresponds to which specific item. The printer can also read the UID and print it directly onto the label, so if any additional info is required, a simple lookup with the UID in the system gets you all the relevant info.