Hospital Identifies Recalled Drugs Via RFID

Published: April 14, 2014

The CaroMont Regional Medical Center is a 435-bed hospital with 96 crash carts containing emergency medical kits, as well as several dozen independent kits at stationary locations, each filled with 20 to 50 medications or other emergency items required by patients in urgent need of treatment for a stroke or some other condition. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) averages between 350 and 375 medication recalls annually. With each recall, the hospital’s pharmacy must determine if it uses that medicine, and then locate and remove the drug in order to ensure that it is not administered to a patient. In some cases, the medications are stored on crash carts distributed throughout a hospital. Pharmacy personnel must search for those carts, open each sealed kit and then return those kits to the pharmacy to be restocked, resealed and placed back on the cart. The hospital has eliminated much of that manual process, thanks to the May 2013 installation of a radio frequency identification-based solution. Learn how the firm has reduced the amount of time employees spend locating and replacing recalled medications on crash carts, as well as replacing drugs and resealing kits, from more than 20 hours down to about two hours.

Speaker:
Mike Molby, Director of Pharmacy Services, CaroMont Regional Medical Center