CARLSBAD and SAN DIEGO, Calif. – August 1, 2011 – Ethertronics, a technology company enabling innovative antenna and RF solutions to deliver the best connected experience, today announced that its active antenna technology has been selected by MEPS Real-Time for its Intelliguard RFID Solutions for Critical Inventory. This selection is the latest example of Ethertronics ability to provide advanced RF and antenna system solutions where high performance and reliability are critical.

The Intelliguard system uses RFID readers in its Pharmacy Reader, Automated Dispensing Cabinet (ADC) and Patient Bedside Reader to interrogate the RFID tags affixed to the medications. Intelliguard provides real-time visibility of inventory, ensuring medications are available when needed, and inventory costs are reduced since lower stock levels are needed and medication expiration dates are properly managed. This system improves patient care by freeing up nursing and pharmacy staff from manually counting stock levels, making sure medication is available, and verifying the correct medication is dispensed and administered.

With the addition of Ethertronics’ active antenna technology, Intelliguard is now better able to ensure accurate readings even in the most challenging RF environments. The ADC contains RF shielding to ensure the RFID reader identifies only the tags on medications stored inside, and not the tags on medications already removed but located within the room. The RF shielding’s high reflection environment causes antenna detuning making it extremely difficult for passive antenna technologies to read the RFID tags. Ethertronics advanced RF antenna system is able to offset the shielding through dynamic tuning of the antenna system. The Ethertronics solution also met key requirements such as the ability to rapidly scan across 50, 915MHz ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) band frequency channels, and dynamically tune a multiple-antenna system within 10 microseconds in order to identify medications, contained in the drawers of the Intelliguard ADC, in a timely manner.

“Today, inventory management of high-value, critical dose medications is critical to reducing costs while increasing efficiency and improving patient care,” said Shariq Hussain, MEPS Real-Time President and CEO. “By leveraging Ethertronics’ active antenna technology, the latest generation of Intelliguard gives hospitals, long-term-care facilities and other health care providers the confidence that they’ll be providing the right medications to the right patient at the right time – every time.”

“Intelliguard is the latest example of how Ethertronics’ advanced RF and antenna system solutions are ensuring high performance and reliability across a wide range of verticals, bands and technologies,” said Barry Matsumori, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Ethertronics. “When makers of smartphones, tablets, laptops, navigation equipment, and medical devices require innovative solutions for their customers, they turn to Ethertronics.”

About Ethertronics

Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Ethertronics is a technology company enabling innovative antenna and RF solutions to deliver the best connected experience for operators, OEMs, and consumers. The company is established in designing and manufacturing high-performance embedded antenna solutions supporting a wide range of applications. The company’s patented Isolated Magnetic Dipole™ (IMD) technology has a legacy as a strong foundation for passive, as well as active antennas designs. Ethertronics’ technology has been selected by major customers with worldwide shipments well over 100 million annually. Ethertronics maintains a global network of design centers and manufacturing operations. For more information, visit www.ethertronics.com.

About MEPS Real Time

MEPS Real-Time, Inc. was founded in 2006 based on a technology vision that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) would be a valuable tool for all medications distributed to the patient’s bedside …. a Medication Error Prevention System with increased visibility of inventory.  Today, MEPS is recognized as the industry leader in RFID medication management through Intelliguard™ RFID Solutions for Critical Inventory.

RFID offers many benefits to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries including: reduced supply chain costs through inventory management of expiration dates, NDC’s and lot numbers; improved patient safety; increased efficiency of pharmacy and nursing staff; and counterfeit and diversion prevention through ePedigree compliance.

Based in Carlsbad, CA, MEPS will feature Intelliguard at the following 2011 conferences: RFID in Healthcare (Chicago, IL), the California Society of Healthsystem Pharmacists (Anaheim, CA) and the American Society of Healthsystem Pharmacists (New Orleans, LA).  For further information, please visit mepsrealtime.com.

MEPS, MEPS Real-Time are registered trademarks and Intelliguard and RFID Solutions for Critical Inventory are trademarks of MEPS Real-Time, Inc.

CARLSBAD, CA, January 19, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ — RFID Journal features MEPS Real Time’s Intelliguard drug management system story.

Someone can live or die depending on the correct medications being dispensed. Hospitals and medical professionals clearly agree leveraging better tracking of a drug’s expiration dates, information about the drug administered, tracking and updating inventory levels, all performed in REAL TIME, would assist in preventing errors.

A San Diego hospital is testing an RFID-based drug-management system developed by MEPS Real Time, an RFID solutions provider based in Carlsbad, Calif. The system, known as Intelliguard, employs standard EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh- frequency(UHF) passive RFID tags and readers, including a tabletop reader for commissioning the tag attached to each drug’s packaging, as well as RFID-enabled drug-dispensing cabinets and bedside patient trays. Each time one of the cabinet’s drawers has been opened and then closed, the system reads the tags of drugs stored in that drawer, and can verify that the correct item was removed.

“It has always been my intention to try to have a system that can reduce medications from expiring, unused,” the hospital’s pharmacy director explains.

Key benefits of MEPS Real Time Drug Management System are:

• Better management of stock levels of medicines. By maintaining a smaller stock, the frequency at which any of the drugs remain on the shelf past their expiry date is reduced.
• EPC Gen 2 tags and readers because the hardware is standardized and the tags can be read consistently and in quantities.
• Trading partners would tag medications prior to shipping them to hospitals, so that the tags can then be used to create drug pedigrees and chains of custody.
• A reduction in cost of capital
• RFID tags and readers, including a tabletop reader for commissioning the tag attached to each drug’s packaging, as well as RFID-enabled drug-dispensing cabinets and bedside patient trays, designed for use within patient rooms.

Founded in 2001, MEPS Real Time spun out from Safety Syringes, which manufactures needle guards for pharmaceutical syringes. Shariq Hussain, MEPS Real Time president, said the company developed its Intelliguard system so it could be used across the pharmaceutical supply chain, wherein trading partners would tag medications prior to shipping them to hospitals, so that the tags can then be used to create drug pedigrees and chains of custody. “We hope distributors and wholesalers will want to step up and participate in future pilots,” he states.

Click Here to Read Full Article
Click Here to See Video