Japanese health-care and pharmaceuticals company Suzuken Group is deploying an RFID-based solution from AmerisourceBergen to manage the locations and statuses of medications at clinics, hospitals and retail locations, as well as in transportation vehicles. The system employs the RFID-based drug-management solution known as Cubixx, supplied by AmerisourceBergen’s specialty pharmaceutical distributor division, ASD Healthcare.
The solution allows Suzuken to track the movements of medications from distribution sites to clinical trials at third-party locations, and to retailers and clinics. The company can also monitor expiration dates and automate the re-ordering of inventory.
Established in 1932, the Suzuken Group is one of Japan’s largest pharmaceutical distribution and logistics services companies. The firm serves as wholesaler for the drugs transported by its own vans to such locations as hospitals, laboratories, clinics and drug stores—which, in some cases, it also owns.
The company began working with ASD in 2015 to develop a system that would automate the tracking of some of its high-value products, according to Chris Flori, ASD Healthcare’s business innovation VP. “The catalyst was specialty drugs,” he says, which must be tested multiple times before they can be provided to consumers. As such, tracking them as they are moved to other locations—for clinical trials, for example—is not only critical, Flori says, but also complex. Drugs that have been certified may be sent to a third-party location for recertification before they are provided to customers.
Suzuken wanted to know where products were located, and to share that data with authorized parties. What’s more, it sought to track when a particular product might be approaching its expiration date. The company began using Cubixx RFID-enabled coolers and RFID tags on some goods as an 18-month trial, which is now transitioning into a full-scale deployment that will be carried out during the course of the next several months, to include more than 1,000 units. Suzuken has declined to comment for this story.
ASD Healthcare has been offering its Cubixx solution for a decade, initially to acute-care facilities, as well as pharmacies, clinics, hospitals and patients, to track RFID-tagged products inside their Cubixx coolers (see ASD Healthcare Deploys RFID Refrigerated Drug Cabinets).
Each unit comes with a built-in ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID reader and antenna array. The make or model of antenna and reader varies, depending on the pharmacy’s criteria and the specific Cubixx unit in use. The units can serve as refrigerators or freezers, with the RFID readers capturing tag read data at temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit). They can also capture ambient or controlled room temperatures. Cubixx units and data are completely customizable, Flori says.
The Cubixx units typically vary from 1.7 cubic feet to 56 cubic feet in size, and organizations can use just one, or a fleet of them. In Suzuken’s case, however, the units needed to be wider and shallower than those deployed in North America or Europe, in order to meet the requirements of the buildings in which the coolers are typically installed.
If tagged medications are placed inside a Cubixx cooler, the units’ built-in RFID readers collect and transmit each tag’s ID number to the Cubixx software on Suzuken’s own server. The information is then forwarded to the drug company’s own management software via a cellular or cabled connection. With the Cubixx software, Suzuken can also use a portal that enables other members of the supply chain, such as authorized drug manufacturers, physicians or pharmacists, to access the information.
The solution enables tracking to be virtually hands-free. Once a drug is tagged (multiple tag makes and models are in use) and its ID number is linked to that particular medication’s description in the software, it can simply be placed in the Cubixx cooler, and the reader will begin transmitting data regarding that tagged item’s location.
The Cubixx system monitors and collects the temperature within each Cubixx unit, along with the expiration dates of any products stored inside. The cooler also comes with security technology that could require the identification of a worker before drugs can be accessed.
In this case, when a user is removing a medication, that individual can be prompted to indicate his or her identity before the cooler can be opened. A touchscreen on the unit’s front lists the names of all employees authorized to remove products, at which time the user presses his or her name. Information such as the time and date, as well as the person removing the product, is then stored. Once the medication is removed, the Cubixx software records that action and the status is updated in Suzuken’s own management software.
One of the unique challenges for this installation, Flori says, was the sheer size of the deployment. It is likely to grow as the drug company continues to deploy coolers at its own distribution centers, at customer sites and in vehicles. “In full-scale,” he states, “it will be in hospitals, retail drug stores and clinics.”
More challenging, however was meeting Japan’s half-watt energy-source requirements. Other countries typically allow up to one-watt power supply in the Cubixx devices.
In the meantime, Flori says, companies worldwide are continuing to acquire the Cubixx system for both large and small deployments. “We continue to expand pervasively across the U.S. and other geographies as well,” he adds, including in small clinics, as well as at hospitals and supplier sites.