Medical Device Link.

Originally Published PMPN November 2002

NEWS

Daphne Allen

In an effort to bar code every drug unit dose, Barcode Technology Inc. (BTI; New York City) and The NOSCO Printing Group (Waukegan, IL) have partnered to offer pharmaceutical packaging professionals Reduced Space Symbology (RSS) and its composite code. When used together, RSS and the composite code, created by the Uniform Code Council Inc. (UCC), can be used to encode a drug's National Drug Code (NDC), lot number, and expiration date. Such details could be read and recorded electronically in hospitals and pharmacies, which could reduce or eliminate identification errors in drug administration.

Their initial joint effort, according to Russ Haraf, NOSCO's president, was a pilot in August of 2001 with Abbott Laboratories, BTI, and St. Alexius Hospital, under the auspices of UCC. It showed that unit-dose product labels could be printed with RSS codes and scanned successfully at bedside.

Ron Barenburg, BTI's senior vice president, adds: "Where now only the NDC in human readables exists on labels, it can now be printed in a bar code and in a human-readable format, in the same place and with no significant change to the label. The methodology also exists to put lot numbers and expiration dates on those labels with the RSS composite and the corresponding human readables using our resources and printers from Domino-Amjet and Zebra Technologies."

Haraf explains that by using BTI's software and related support equipment, NOSCO can print RSS and the composite code onto labeling, verify the code quality, and supply equipment for drug companies to scan the codes on their own packaging lines. "We already print bar codes on many of the packages we make for our customers, but many of the labels do not include a bar code, due to space limitations. RSS bar codes make it possible to bar code almost every product in the healthcare system."

Barenburg agrees. "RSS bar codes can be small enough to fit on every product in the healthcare system, down to unit dose," he explains. "RSS codes can be read by readily available, off-the-shelf scanners."

In addition, Haraf says RSS use could make inventory management, billing, and other transactions more efficient.

Copyright ©2002 Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News