RFID CASE STUDY
SPANISH AIFOS SOLUTIONS CHOOSES NORDIC ID FOR
BLOOD BANK TRACKING
When Barcelona-based Aifos Solutions was tasked with developing a new RFID-based blood products tracking system for Spain’s Balearic Islands Blood and Tissue Bank (FBSTIB), they turned to Nordic ID for mobile computers that would operate in subarctic temperatures.
BARCODE SCANNING FOUND TO BE PROBLEMATIC Barcode technology has proven less than optimal for FBSTIB staff at the organization’s processing center on the island of Mallorca. It has meant unpacking entire crates of frozen blood bags and scanning or reading each bag in turn—no small task with 30,000 bags packed 80 to a crate…in a deep freezer with an average temperature of -35°C (-31F). Finding the right bag can take so long that staff members often take crates out of the deep freezer to search for the right bag, putting plasma in jeopardy of thawing. Blood extracted from donors at any of several mobile units in the Balearic Islands follows a complicated journey, each step of which needs to be tracked to ensure that red blood cells, plasma or platelets reach the right patient in perfect condition. Blood is first put through a series of tests
ABOUT AIFOS Aifos Solutions markets track and trace tools for the healthcare market. Offers full solutions to improve the Blood Supply Chain and Lab Management; enhancing security, efficiency and lowering its operating costs. Aifos Solutions assists the Healthcare Industry in their R&D RFID projects and distributes first class software and hardware; ranging from low-cost RFID tags, readers and antennas to tailored solutions.
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at FBSTIB’s processing center in Palma de Mallorca. Next, whole blood is separated into plasma, red blood cells or platelets, which are stored either in a deep freezer, a refrigeration unit or, in the case of platelets, in an agitator. Then, when a hospital sends over blood parameters, the blood bank has to respond and manage its scarce resources to satisfy demands as quickly as possible. “The deep freezer is most problematic for barcode scanning,” says Esteve Jané, Aifos Solutions’ COO.“Frost buildup and wrinkled labels make an already slow barcode scanning process more difficult.” Each bag is tagged with up to six barcodes as it passes through the stages of its journey. These all need to be scanned at each step, and all key data also needs to be readable as text printed on the labels, in keeping with the International Society of Blood Transfusion 128 standard.
RFID MAKES BLOOD TRACKING FASTER, SAFER, LESS EXPENSIVE To make the blood tracking and location process faster, safer and more transparent, FBSTIB chose Aifos Solutions, a Barcelonabased RFID systems specialist, to help them move from barcode to RFID. Aifos in turn selected Alien Technologies’ Generation 2 RFID chip for tags and Nordic ID PL 3000 UHF RFID mobile computers, used to find the blood bags that staff members need. The new RFID tags will shortcut the contact scanning and visual reading process by storing all information—including a record of ambient temperature over time—on each bag’s re-recordable 512-bit RFID tag. Equipped with Nordic ID mobile computers, staff members are able to quickly find blood bags in a fastpaced, frenetic environment by scanning up to