Where's RFID Going Next?
Article in InformationWeek is reporting innovative uses of RFID tags from it being embedded in Wristbands to Soccer balls and casino chips. Very good read.
...At the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., RFID tags have found their way into patient wristbands. Each tag contains a patient's name and medical record number. Nurses scan it using a tablet PC containing a reader and pull corresponding records from the hospital's database. Hospital personnel have seen a reduction in drug-administration errors, and CIO Daniel Morreale says freeing nursing staff from having to type information into a database has led to improved productivity....
...A doctoral student at the University of Florida is creating RFID grids in carpeting, hallway baseboards, and along outdoor walkways to help visually impaired and other disabled students navigate the campus. ...
CVS Prescribes RFID for Retail Payment Terminals
CVS Corp. is installing RFID-enabled terminals for processing various types of payment-card transactions at its 5,400 pharmacy retail stores nationwide, according to Hypercom Corp., the maker of the terminals.
....The terminals have been configured to the retailer's specifications and can accept magnetic swipe cards and smart cards in addition to the contactless cards and fobs, Rawls said. He noted that the RFID capabilities are designed to decrease the amount of time customers spend waiting in line to make purchases....
RFID Project Safeguards Drug
eWeek is reporting how a drug Manufacturer Purdue Pharma is monitoring one of its most successful drugs OxyContin's through the complete supply chain using RFID tags.
The technology helps Purdue create an electronic "drug pedigree," data that enables the company to follow products throughout the supply chain, from the manufacturer to the wholesaler to the pharmacy, said company CIO Chuck Nardi. That sort of information is normally kept in paper documents. With RFID technology, Purdue can now scan and record the 48 bottles of OxyContin in each carton shipped to distribution centers for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and H.D. Smith Wholesale Drug Co., rather than a single tag on each case. The reader scans the chip and records the specific product and the serial number on each bottle. That information is sent to Wal-Mart and H.D. Smith, which can then verify what products they received and when they received them.
The data gives Purdue greater scrutiny of the products' trip through the supply chain and gives Wal-Mart and H.D. Smith better assurances that what ended up in their partners' distribution centers is what was shipped out of Purdue's facilities.....
...Getting the pilot programs up and running took Purdue more than a year. Through an extensive trial-and-error program, the company worked closely with its label maker to figure out a way to bundle a tiny RFID chip under the label of each pill bottle. Purdue is using a 1-inch-square 915MHz chip from Symbol's RFID division—formerly known as Matrics Inc.—on each bottle of the drugs shipped.
In addition, Purdue is using ERP (enterprise resource planning) software from SAP AG that supports RFID information and is running the pilot programs on fault-tolerant servers from Stratus Technologies Inc. The SAP applications enable data captured by the tag reader to be input into Purdue's business systems.....
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