Transfusion Medicine RFID Consortium details plans to track and monitor blood products
The Transfusion Medicine RFID Consortium has announced that S3Edge Inc., the software partner for the consortium, has been selected to exclusively commercialize the RFID and barcode-based Blood Product Tracking suite of applications designed and built under a private, academic, and public initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The system, consisting of mobile, desktop, and server software applications, provides greater visibility to the physical movement of blood products, while improving the efficiency of Blood Center operations. The RFID consortium includes Blood Center of Wisconsin, SysLogic Inc., S3Edge Inc., Carter Bloodcare, Mississippi Blood Services, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Mississippi Baptist Health System, University of Wisconsin Madison—RFID Laboratory, and Mediware Corp. The suite of applications has been deployed in a production pilot at the Blood Center of Wisconsin and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) with promising results. The hospital transfusion services tracking module was piloted at the DeGowin Blood Center at UIHC, where it was run in parallel with IPR, an internally developed barcode-based tracking system.
The initiative to introduce RFID technology in transfusion medicine is also a showcase of how groundbreaking solutions can be very effectively designed, developed, and commercialized via private-academic-public initiatives for the healthcare industry. SysLogic, Inc., a founding member of the consortium and awardee of the STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) grant allowing for creation of the system, will continue to spearhead efforts to obtain the 510(k) clearance for the blood product tracking suite of applications developed by the consortium. Attendees at the AABB Annual Meeting and CTTXPO2012 learned more about the RFID blood product tracking initiative and the commercialization plans when they visited the S3Edge booth. You can learn more from the TM RFID Consortium website.
