Aug 31, 2017The following are news announcements made during the past week by the following organizations:
MEPS Real-Time;
Harting;
Faxitron, Health Beacons Inc.;
Eccel Technology; and
Machfu.
MEPS Real-Time Announces 500th Intelliguard RFID Client Installation
MEPS Real-Time, which provides Intelliguard RFID solutions for pharmacy inventory management, has announced that it has achieved its 500th active customer installation in North America. "This is a significant milestone that reflects the health-care market's continued focus on safety, cost control and efficiency in pharmacy operations," said Gordon Krass, MEPS' CEO, in a prepared statement. "Our success is a result of our modular and scalable approach to intelligent inventory management solutions that support a broad category of critical drugs and supplies used in hospitals, health systems and adjacent health-care markets."
The firm's Intelliguard solutions combine RFID hardware and workflow processes with business-intelligence software. This data, the company reports, allows hospital and health system pharmacy teams to optimize inventory levels, track the conditions under which drugs are stored, support expiration control and stock rotation, and manage recalls. Intelliguard solutions include:
• Intelliguard Kit and Tray Management System: RFID-enabled hospital pharmacy automation for kit and tray management, enabling faster replenishment and reduced errors in distributing procedural and emergency medications.
• Intelliguard Linked Visibility Inventory System: RFID-enabled medication inventory management systems for secure access and inventory control of anesthesia medications in operating rooms.
• Intelliguard Controlled Temperature Inventory Management System: RFID-enabled controlled-temperature cabinets for secure, remote access and inventory control of high-value, critical-dose pharmaceuticals.
• Intelliguard Vendor Managed Inventory System: RFID-enabled controlled-temperature cabinets for manufacturers and distributors to continuously monitor remote inventory and provide tracking of products as they are used.
Harting Intros UHF RFID Antenna for Railway Recognition
Harting has announced its new Ha-VIS RF-ANT-WR24 UHF RFID antenna. The antenna's range, the company reports, is suitable for creating gates for container tracking and identifying the specific platform to which it is installed directly under a train. The antenna is compatible with applications involving extreme temperature conditions.
Harting's UHF RFID product portfolio includes three models in the new antenna range. The WR24-i is intended for industrial use. The minimalistic design and N connector also make it suitable for gate applications, the company notes, such as train recognition on railway tracks.
Made of stainless steel, the WR24-r is intended for scenarios requiring a mechanically robust solution. Its design comes without a connector on the antenna. All antenna features are built for installation in extreme conditions—under a train, for example. The antenna can operate in environments with special temperature range requirements, including at more than 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit).
RFID System from Faxitron, Health Beacons Inc. Granted FDA Clearance for Localizing Breast Lesions
Faxitron, a company that offers solutions for breast health, has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted clearance to LOCalizer, a wireless RFID breast lesion localization system manufactured by Health Beacons Inc.
Traditional methods of locating non-palpable breast lesions for removal, such as procedures involving wire localization or radioactive seeds, are encumbered by complex regulations, potential scheduling conflicts, unintended wire migration, and added stress for patients, the company reports. LOCalizer was designed to circumvent these complications by using a non-radioactive, proprietary tag as a marker to enable a surgeon to remove the correct area of breast tissue during a procedure. The tag can be implanted up to 30 days prior to surgery, and can be detected by a mobile handheld reader that can accurately locate tags within millimeters.
"The most exciting aspect of the LOCalizer technology is being able to accurately measure the distance to the target lesion, something we haven't been able to do with other localization methods," said Dr. Christine Dauphine, from the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, in a prepared statement. "Our team was able to experience the LOCalizer system first-hand in the operating room, and we were thrilled by the prospect of providing patients with a localization method that, by design, could avoid the anxiety of having additional procedures on the day of surgery." Several institutions, including UCLA, will clinically evaluate LOCalizer to compare its benefits to other localization methods.
"As the industry gets better at detecting smaller breast lesions, we must establish a new gold standard for breast lesion localization," said Donogh O'Driscoll, Faxitron's CFO and COO, in the prepared statement. "LOCalizer could be the breakthrough needed to make lumpectomies and breast biopsies safer, more efficient and a better experience for both providers and patients. For more than half a century, our dedication to advancing breast health has been unwavering, and we're honored to once again pave the way for a higher standard of care."
Eccel Raspberry Pi Board Enables RFID, NFC Communication
Eccel Technology (also known as IB Technology) has announced its Raspberry Pi Hat RFID/NFC Board (Raspberry Pi-B1 for short). The add-on board is now available for £33 ($43) at RS Components, a U.K.-based distributor of electronics, automation and control components, tools and consumables.
The Raspberry Pi-B1 board provides radio frequency identification and Near Field Communication (NFC) capability at 13.56 MHz, at a range of up to 1 meter (3.3. feet). The device is intended for use with Raspberry Pi-based access-control, resource-management, prepayment-monitoring and storage-management applications.
According to the company, the Raspberry Pi-B1 supports Mifare Classic, Ultralight and NTAG2 RFID technologies, and is designed to offer high transponder read and write speeds. It includes an ARM microcontroller for handling RFID configuration, Eccel reports, as well as a command interface, available via a 921 Kbps COM port, for quick read-write access to transponder memory and other features.
The Raspberry Pi-B1 comes with 2x configurable pulse-width modulator (PWM) and 4x configurable general-purpose input-output (GPIO) boards with interrupts. It features an analog-to-digital converter, a current-output digital-to-analog converter, comparator functions and an optional AES-128 encryption engine, and can operate in environments ranging from -25 degrees to +85 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees to +185 degrees Fahrenheit).
Machfu Raises $1.6 Million to Accelerate IIoT Deployments in Energy, Smart Water
Machfu, an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) company, has announced that it has raised $1.6 million during the first round of institutional financing. This investment, led by Blu Venture Investors, will allow the company to accelerate its successes in the smart-grid and smart-water markets, and to expand its footprint in the oil and gas industry. The company has recently received financing from Maryland's TEDCO and other angel investors.
"The big problems impeding the growth of the IIoT at scale," said Prakash Chakravarthi, Machfu's founder and CEO, in a prepared statement, "are security and the sheer variety of application protocols, cloud connectivity protocols, wireless and wireline interfaces that make it difficult for legacy and IIoT technologies to communicate effectively."
"With the help of our new investment partners," Chakravarthi said, "we are enabling companies and organizations across a variety of industries to quickly and securely create applications that will help them to gather and utilize data, make sound business decisions with the additional information gleaned from that data, and increase their energy and operational efficiency as a result."
Machfu developed the Layer 7 Gateway with applications and communication capabilities for the IIoT. The system securely unifies a fragmented industrial automation market, takes advantage of a large and established developer community, enables a secure enterprise application management framework concept for the IoT with secure sandboxed applications, and makes hyper-growth potential of the IIoT possible. Machfu is positioned to capitalize on a large emerging opportunity, the company reports—conservatively predicted to exceed $20 billion annually by 2020.
