• Cardinal Health (Dublin, Ohio), a provider of products and services supporting the healthcare industry, reported the results from the first end-to-end test of a technology that could further improve the safety and efficiency of the nation’s pharmaceutical supply chain, it said. The pilot program tested whether ultra-high frequency radio frequency identification (RFID) tags could be applied, encoded and read at normal production speeds during packaging and distribution of pharmaceuticals. Verifying the authenticity of medications along each step of the distribution process adds an additional layer of security to lessen the chance of counterfeit pharmaceuticals entering the supply chain, the company said. It is also hoped that RFID data could improve efficiencies in the supply chain. Data collected from the pilot suggest that it is feasible for RFID tags to be inlaid into existing FDA-approved pharmaceutical label stock, and the tags can be applied and encoded on packaging lines at normal operational speeds, the company said.
• HemCon Medical Technologies (Portland, Oregon), which focuses on hemorrhage control technology, said that the HemCon Dental Dressing is now in full domestic distribution. The HemCon Dental Dressing is designed to treat tooth extraction sites and other oral wounds. HemCon is partnering with the leading dental distributors, including Patterson Dental and Sullivan-Schein. HemCon’s chitosan platform technology is most notably being used as the basis for their proprietary hemorrhage control bandage. This bandage, which is in wide use by the U.S. Army, is capable of controlling severe arterial bleeding. This same technology has now been applied to an oral wound dressing.
• iCAD (Nashua, New Hampshire), a provider of computer-aided detection (CAD) solutions for the early identification of cancer, said that it will unveil its latest CAD innovations for attendees at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA; Oak Brook, Illinois) annual meeting in Chicago on Nov. 26-Dec 1. The company said it will debut its largest booth to date at the meeting, featuring demonstrations of its SecondLook products with the newly released CAD version 7.2. Released in September, iCAD’s SecondLook with CAD 7.2 has already experienced “tremendous demand” from customers as well as digital mammography manufacturers. In addition, iCAD will be providing attendees a first view of its advanced CAD applications in-development for mammography and CT colonography, the company said.
• Neoteric Technology (Vancouver, British Columbia) reported that it has received marketing clearance from the FDA for BloodTrack, a suite of products used in hospitals to manage blood inventory and ensure safe transfusions at the bedside. The company said that by using BloodTrack, some locations have experienced a reduction in blood usage by as much as 25%. BloodTrack Courier is a kiosk-based system used at remote refrigerators to electronically track blood units and monitor inventory levels while BloodTrack Hemosafe is a sophisticated refrigerated vending machine that provides controlled allocation of blood in locations such as the OR and ER. Once the blood unit arrives at the bedside, nurses use a handheld PDA with BloodTrack SafeTx to scan the blood unit and patient’s barcoded wristband to ensure the right patient receives the right blood.