Smart tags used to manage medicines
A drug management system that uses so-called smart tags to track medicines from inventory to disposal - including the filling of prescriptions at pharmacies - has been launched by Japanese company Hitachi.
A drug management system that uses so-called smart tags to track medicines from inventory to disposal - including the filling of prescriptions at pharmacies - has been launched by Japanese company Hitachi.
Field tests have already begun and the company intends to commercialise the system within three years, thus allowing pharmaceuticals to be checked by eye as well as confirmed mechanically.
In the trials smart tags are attached to some 50 different types of drugs from cancer treatments to high-calorie transfusion liquids, as received from pharmaceutical makers. The tags are then used to confirm whether the drugs are being dispensed properly at pharmacies, based on patients' prescriptions.
'Although smart tags have been used to manage drug inventories, utilising the devices to check on whether prescriptions are filled correctly is an entirely new undertaking,' said a Hitachi spokesman. 'In addition, the system is expected to help control missing medications by tracking expiration dates, when and where prescriptions are filled and which pharmacists were concerned.'