UnitVisID leads growing RFID use in healthcare

Shortages, recalls, workflow inefficiencies and lack of interoperability are some of the challenges in the pharma supply chain despite significant investments by hospitals and healthcare organizations.

The confluence of the Covid-19 pandemic, drug shortages and staff shortages have accelerated RFID technology adoption. Emergen Research forecasts that the market for RFID in healthcare will reach almost USD 15 billion in 2028 globally from USD 4.24 billion in 2020.

With advancements in technology and innovation, RFID-tagged pharmaceutical products in the healthcare industry present opportunities to improve inventory management and, ultimately, better patient outcomes.

In recent years, various RFID technologies have been introduced to the healthcare market to track pharmaceutical products, instruments and supplies without establishing industry-wide specifications to ensure accuracy and performance.

With industry-wide support of a comprehensive set of RFID specifications for healthcare, players along the pharmaceutical supply chain can work together to solve these issues proactively.

RFID brings the industry together

The UnitVisID Alliance (launched initially as the DoseID Consortium in August 2020) founding members recognized the need to bring together the industry in a way that ensures RFID-tagged pharmaceutical products work in all the downstream systems in hospitals and health systems.

This centralized backbone of data exchange, combined with a unified set of performance specifications, opens a world of interoperability that provides a complete and accurate history of each single-unit-dose pharmaceutical product that every industry participant can use.

The alliance maintains the UnitVisID Specification with participation by representatives of hospitals, automation vendors, software vendors, and pharmaceutical manufacturers working side-by-side to ensure an interoperable, high-performance future for RFID in the pharmaceutical industry and improved patient outcomes.
Furthermore, the UnitVisID Registry was created to provide a complete and evolving record of each pharmaceutical’s components and event history securely stored in the cloud and available to all authorized parties anytime throughout the product’s entire lifecycle.

Currently, UnitVisID is used by more than 1,000 hospitals and healthcare organizations, and more than 210 million RFID-tagged products utilizing the UnitVisID platform have been scanned, more than any other RFID system in the US healthcare space.

‘We’ve realized the many benefits of RFID in healthcare, and its massive adoption is a testament that we are now at a tipping point,’ says Tim Kress-Spatz, president at UnitVisID Alliance. ‘The rebrand reflects this change, and to really tackle the challenges of shortages, recalls, workflow inefficiencies, and lack of interoperability, it requires a whole of industry approach from the entire healthcare supply chain.’

The alliance provides a unified approach with research, tools and resources for the healthcare industry that ensures RFID-tagged pharmaceutical products work in all downstream systems in hospitals and healthcare systems.

“We’ve realiaed the many benefits of RFID in healthcare, and its massive adoption is a testament that we are now at a tipping point”

UnitVisID is open to hospitals and industry organizations. Founding members hail from companies across the industry spectrum, including Avery Dennison, SML RFID and CCL Healthcare. Current industry members span the pharmaceutical manufacturing ecosystem and include RFID companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, 503B outsourcing facilities, technology and automation vendors, label converters and service suppliers.

The alliance is opening a world of opportunity for interoperability, performance and tracking of an accurate history of medication use so that any industry participant has access to reliable information on each medication dose.
‘We are thrilled to be working with pharmaceutical industry leaders to introduce UnitVisID and ensure the standardization of RFID in the healthcare space,’ says Dr Bill Hardgrave, senior vice president for academic affairs at Auburn University and the founder of the RFID Lab. ‘After assisting the retail and aerospace industries in fully commercializing RFID for unit-level visibility, we are pleased we can help revolutionize healthcare with those lessons learned.’

The RFID Lab is an established research institute that has worked with industry groups representing some of the largest users of RFID technology. The ARC program has served as a neutral third-party RFID certification body for the industry establishing performance and quality specifications that have evolved into industry standards.

Medications tagged at the unit dose with UnitVisID-certified RFID labels will be open to all automation vendors that wish to use the standard for searching drug provenance. This assures items like refrigerated drugs with beyond-use dating are understood by all parties.

‘We are very supportive of the UnitVisID mission and glad to be part of the founding membership,’ says DJ Lee, global channel sales director of Avery Dennison. ‘As a world leader in digital identification technologies and RFID production, creating over 30 billion tags to date, we are excited to support UnitVisID with this crucial initiative for the healthcare industry. We have a long-standing partnership with third-party certification group ARC Lab and our experience and R&D capabilities have enabled the innovation of RFID products to support the challenging demands of the healthcare industry.’

‘As a leading player in healthcare labeling, CCL is excited to join UnitVisID and help pave the way for the future of RFID,’ adds Pramit Sen, vice president and general manager for Labels USA at CCL Healthcare. ‘With all different aspects of the medication supply chain represented, we are enthusiastic about continued innovation.’

Certification matters

As one of the founding members, Avery Dennison Smartrac is manufacturing inlays for pharmaceutical applications, unlocking critical RFID value for healthcare, pharmacies and laboratory asset management.

In February 2022, the company launched AD Minidose U9, one of the smallest products on the market, to receive ARC certification (Spec S) from Auburn University’s RFID Lab and to be approved for use by the UnitVisID Industry Alliance.

AD Minidose U9 builds on the success of the Minidose U8 inlay launched in 2021 and performs in the standard UHF RFID frequency band between 860MHz-960MHz, with a small form factor of 22x12mm. With its long read range, even in densely packed inventory environments, it is certified to work on all current UnitVisID product categories. The inlay uses NXP’s proven UCODE 9 IC, which is equipped with 96 bits of EPC memory, including a 96-bit Tag IDentifier (TID) with a 48-bit unique serial number factory-encoded into the TID.

‘AD Minidose U9 meets the needs of a wide range of pharmaceutical item-level use cases,’ comments Max Winograd, vice president of connected products at Avery Dennison Smartrac. ‘The inlay performs robustly on the clear and amber glass as well as plastics and syringes, even when filled with pharmaceuticals and biologicals. This unlocks critical RFID value for asset and inventory management in multiple pharma or healthcare applications. It also meets specific customer requirements with the goal of ensuring patient safety, increasing nursing “time to care”, and decreasing inefficiencies in the operational process.’

“As a world leader in digital identitication technologies and RFID production, creating over 30 billion tags to date, we are excited to support UnitVisID with this crucial initiative for the healthcare industry”

Avery Dennison Smartrac is also a key RFID partner for Kit Check, one of the leading providers of automated medication tracking and diversion detection technologies for hospital pharmacies in the US and has supplied RFID tags for the Kit Check application since its inception.

The Kit Check RFID-enabled inventory management solution helps hospitals modernize restocking processes and automates them to save redundant drug spend and ensure patient safety.

According to Tim Kress-Spatz, Kit Check co-founder and president of UnitVisID Alliance, Kit Check’s inventory of RFID medication tracking systems can help solve the supply chain problems, such as shortages, recalls and diversions pharmaceutical containers continues to expand by adding different series of containers in various sizes.

‘We pursue to work successfully with Avery Dennison Smartrac, and their product line continuously evolves to meet our needs. We tag a myriad of pharmaceuticals through the Kit Check solution to deliver the right medicine to the right patient at the right time, every time,’ adds Kress-Spatz.

With the EOS-202 U9, Tageos has not simply expanded the range of UnitVissID-certified and ARC Spec S-approved inlays designed for unit-of-use medications and specimens in pharmaceutical applications. The French-headquartered RFID supplier is fundamentally upgrading that range with a product of unique capabilities.

The new UHF product features a sophisticated, small-footprint antenna design measuring just 20x10 mm (wet inlay finished size 22x12 mm) alongside NXP’s state-of-the-art UCODE9 IC. The IC complies with the EPC Class 1 Gen 2 protocol and the  ISO 18000-6c standard for global use and features auto-adjust technology, unique brand identifiers, and pre-serialized 96-bit EPC memory.

‘The new EOS-202 U9 inlay underpins our strong commitment to always provide our customers with the most advanced products in terms of maximum performance, quality and sustainability. With its unique combination of the smallest size and optimum read characteristics in challenging environments, the new inlay provides the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector with the ultimate “one-size-fits-all” solution,’ says Chris Reese, head of product management at Tageos. ‘Because of its broad range of applications, we consider the EOS-202 U9 as a true breakthrough product in the market.’

‘It’s good to see our list of certified inlays growing. The fact that there is now a product that passes all ARC Spec S tests also confirms our certification and testing concept making it very easy for customers to choose the right solution,’ adds Kress-Spatz.

As more companies incorporate RFID tags on external packaging or within the drug delivery format, it is critical that the technology works reliably and is open to all downstream participants so they can consistently access both existing standards information like the GS1 SGTIN as well as the medication history, including lot numbers and beyond use dates.

By offering players throughout the supply chain a mechanism for RFID standardization, UnitVisID certification can ensure optimized performance for end users and industry participants. When properly configured, RFID medication tracking systems can help solve the problems that plague the supply chain, including shortages, recalls and diversion, while reducing integration headaches that are currently prevalent in siloed healthcare systems.