New York hypermarket Wegmans will carry out RFID prescription order tracking test in its drug store
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Wegmans Food Markets, a $4 billion supermarket in New York State, plans to test a set of RFID drug tracking system in supermarket drug stores to determine whether the labeling of customers’ prescriptions can locate and process prescriptions faster and more accurately. Wegmans owns 71 supermarket chains, and its pharmacy stores an average of 2,400 prescriptions per week, and some stores can handle more than 5,000 prescriptions per week.
Although Wegman has not disclosed the specific implementation plan and launch time, the company has set some goals, including labeling and prescription tracking of individual medicine bottles, and monitoring the circulation of medicine bottles in pharmacies to the point of purchase. Through the test, Wegmans hopes to understand how RFID technology and EPCglobal’s network architecture can improve the company’s medical department’s business process and customer service.
New York hypermarket Wegmans will carry out RFID prescription order tracking test in its drug store
Mike Merulla, Wegmans medical system application development manager, and Debbie Parker, retail chain medical business program director, said that they are also studying the application of RFID tags for individual medicine bottles outside of sales. They are actively looking for partners to develop a family-use RFID tag reader, which can be used to manage family medicines, such as medication time and dosage.
An electronic form of instructions will be printed on the medicine packaging. The electronic form can be customized according to the special requirements of the patient. For example, the visually impaired can use the recording form. According to Merulla and Parker, although the initial medical store pilot project will not include this type of home application test, it will be part of the next test.
At the Wegmans medical store participating in the test, when the staff fills out the prescription form, an RFID tag is attached to the prescription form, and the EPC Gen 2 RFID tag encoder and reader are installed in the store to encode the chip in the label. Each label will be coded into a serialized global trade identification code (SGTIN), with a 2-dimensional bar code and EPGglobal logo printed on the surface of the label. SGTIN will be used as the unique identification code of the labeled item to correspond to the contact information of the drug recipient and important medical information (such as allergies). The label does not contain any personally identifiable information.
Once the medicine configuration of the medicine list is completed, the pharmacist puts the medicine pack in a draw. Each medicine list is arranged according to the customer’s last name. The reader in the drawer regularly scans the labelled prescriptions, and the pharmacist can also check the computer screen to confirm whether the prescriptions are in the drawer and where they are, thus saving search time.
Although the pharmacy will encourage customers to keep the RFID tag on each medicine bottle or package, Wegmans will still install a tag killer in the store, or stick a non-RFID tag on the prescription according to the customer’s request.
Wegmans is now looking for technology partners for preliminary testing. Before launching the test, the retailer also plans to launch a large-scale customer RFID education.
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