GlaxoSmithKline utilises RFID

GlaxoSmithKline has begun distributing a medicine tagged with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology as part of a pilot project to help protect patient safety, reports More RFID.

The tags will be placed on all bottles of Trizivir (an HIV medicine) distributed in the US. When scanned at close range, the tags will help verify the medicine bottle contains authentic Trizivir.

This specific medicine was selected for the project because it has been listed by the US National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as one of 32 drugs most susceptible to counterfeiting and diversion.

US home healthcare services provider Star Care health services has released a proprietary, Web-based program that integrates all aspects of home healthcare information to improve quality, cost control and accountability, reports My West Texas.

The new electronic health records technology combines offers updated medical information on patients to loved ones and physicians no matter where they are.

The new software, called Star Care Online Record Enterprise (SCORE), allows Star Care personnel to maintain quality and consistency between all healthcare professionals serving a patient, by providing timely access to medical records for treatments, medications and therapies provided to the patient.

Software can be used to determine the origin of birds afflicted with bird flu, such as which farm and which country they came from. It can also process the data associated with that flock, says Geoff Squires, Asia-Pacific director of Intentia, a Swedish enterprise resource planning company.

He draws a parallel on ZD Net India, with the cattle industry, which suffers intermittently from outbreaks of mad cow disease. Farmers have begun to tag cows with RFID chips to track which lots have contracted the disease. RFID tags have proven to be useful in helping farmers trace the origin of herd supplies, he says.

At this stage, however, farmers face a rather unique obstacle in applying RFID technology to poultry. "Cattle and sheep have tags [inserted] into their ears. But ducks and chickens have no ears. There is some difficulty in attaching tags [to poultry] at the moment," he noted.