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The RFID laboratory of the University of Wisconsin-Madison joined three blood banks to study whether RFID technology can improve the efficiency of blood tracking and distribution. The first phase of the project has been completed. RFID is increasingly used for product quality control in the United States. Researchers estimate that RFID can reduce blood transfusion errors, avoid the 40,000-45,000 bags of blood that are discarded due to various problems each year, and save the industry 9 million US dollars.
“The first stage of the research is to evaluate the availability of RFID technology in the blood supply chain. We need to understand if RFID technology can really improve the efficiency of the blood supply chain, then how it will be integrated into the existing process,” Alfonso Gutierre, director of the RFID laboratory at the University of Wisconsin say. “The second stage we are in now is to determine the application prototype stage. That is to build the basic components of the system, and will test it in the actual application environment-namely blood banks and hospitals. But we will not test blood for blood transfusion. No. The focus of the second phase is the integration of hardware and software, and this phase is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.”
According to Gutierrez, blood used for testing blood transfusions must first be approved by the FDA. He said that researchers conduct other tests to evaluate whether RFID will affect blood quality (exposing blood samples to the RFID reader environment), and submit their research results to the FDA for review.
The Wisconsin Blood Bank initiated this project a year ago and invited the Carter Blood Center in Dallas and the Jackson Blood Center in Mississippi to join the research project. In total, these three institutions manage 500,000 bags of blood each year.
The research focuses on the whole process of blood from reaching the blood bank, testing, production, inventory management to finally being sent to the hospital. If a bag of blood cannot be identified, it cannot be used, so accurate tracking throughout the supply chain is very important. The blood center must also have a complete temperature record of the blood. Problems with these processes cause blood banks to discard 15,000 to 20,000 blood bags each year at an average cost of $200 per bag, the researchers said.
The main motivation for studying the application of RFID in the blood supply chain is not to save time or replace bar codes, but to improve the security and accuracy of the supply chain.
“Our goal is not to replace barcodes, but to extend the existing system,” Gutierrez said. “We hope to combine barcodes and RFID systems to improve security.”
The application prospect of RFID in the blood supply chain is bright
At present, the blood bag is recorded and tracked by barcode. Compared with barcodes, RFID can save time and facilitate tracking.
Researchers at the RFID laboratory of the University of Wisconsin evaluated the application of microwave, UHF and HF technologies in blood recognition. According to Gutierrez, UHF and HF work performance is much better than microwave.
“UHF and HF have little difference in performance. We use HF technology not only to consider performance,” Gutierrez said. “The maturity of technology, standards and global application environment are also the main factors we consider. The HF standard has been globalized.”
“Currently, when the blood bank receives the blood, the strips of each pack of blood must be scanned. The RFID system can process 28 or 30 packs of blood every 5 seconds.” Gutierrez said.
The world is interested in the application of RFID to track blood. ISBT members from 85 countries are now studying RFID standards, according to Gutierrez. Malaysia is said to be considering the use of RFID to manage blood in more than 300 institutions across the country.
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