Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals' Smart Cabinet Tracks Contrast Agents

A technologist who wishes to administer contrast media for an MRI or CT procedure either allows the cabinet's RFID interrogator to read the RFID tag in their ID badge, or uses the cabinet's keypad to enter a personal identification number. The shelf includes a touch screen and an automatic door lock. If the system accepts the worker's ID number, the door unlocks and the screen displays a list of patients scheduled for procedures that day. The patient list is derived from the hospital's admission records, which the VistaTrak software system makes available on the reader screen.

When the technologist selects a patient, that person's medical records, as well as a dosage recommendation and any health issues (such as a report of poor kidney function that would not accommodate the procedure), is displayed on the screen. The employee then removes the bottle from the shelf, at which time the interrogator ceases to receive transmission of that RFID label and sends an alert to the back-end system, indicating the bottle has been removed.

The system not only tracks the media's movement for safety purposes, but also can track expiration dates and ensure that one bottle is used entirely before another is opened. For example, if a bottle is opened and then returned to the cabinet with product remaining inside, a subsequent technologist can receive an alert from the system's touch screen indicating the presence of an opened bottle already on the self. Hospitals frequently purchase 100-milliliter bottles to supply product for multiple procedures, but the procedures are so common that the amount of wastage in some hospitals is high.

The greatest financial value hospitals can gain from the VistaTrak system, Christianson says, is in "ensuring that patients and their insurers are billed for the use of the contrast media during their procedures."

"Our goal is to have as many [hospitals] as possible using this system," Bertetti states. "It gives them a better way to monitor their compliance and ensure safety." Pricing for the system, he says, has yet to be determined.