Bar code versus RFID as FDA deadline passes

As the two-year deadline by the US Food and Drug Admin-istration passes for bar coding drugs, the debate has moved on to the economics and uses of radio frequency identifi-cation (RFID). The original FDA regulation, dating from 2004, was introduced after a report by the Washington DC-headquartered Institute of Medicine found that mis-labeling drugs results in more than 7,000 deaths in the USA annually.

Bar codes are now required on the outside of containers and individual blister-wrapped cells. The idea is that health care professionals, especially in hospitals and clinics, will be issued with bar code scanning equipment, which would help reduce errors, as well as assist in stock-checking. A wire-less bar coding equipment manufacturer in the USA, specializing in health care applications reports that the arrival of the bar coding deadline has not yet resulted in a large take-up of the technology by hospitals. Timothy Kubiak, sales manager at Westcon Group told Government Health IT magazine: "we have not seen the bar code issue to be a huge driver in health care yet." Ken Kleinberg, senior director of global health care at Symbol Technolo-gies, estimates that no more than 10% of hospitals in the USA have implemented wire-less bar code readers, how-ever he sees evidence of a momentum building up. Mr Kleinberg said: "I think we'll see the market effectively begin to double this year."

Avoiding errors saves $5,000-$6,000 per case