FOX News Reports on Identiv’s NFC Solutions for Healthcare Management
By Gene J. Koprowski, FOX News
Today, Gene J. Koprowki with FOX News reported on technology advancements in the healthcare industry in the article “Medication management goes digital”. Identiv and its NFC customer, HealthID, are both featured in the piece:
Another technology that can revolutionize health care involves the use of NFC (near field communication) tags. Unlike QR codes, which can be printed by the pharmacist on a prescription label, NFC tags are more like microchips, embedded in the bottle. They can monitor the weight of the bottle to determine whether a pill has been taken out, and they can be “easily programmed with a doctor’s instructions, including correct dosage, cautions, drug interactions and additional information that won’t fit on a current label,” said Jason Hart, CEO and Director of Identiv, Inc., a maker of NFC technology for the health care industry.
“There is a huge opportunity for both health institutions and patients to embrace NFC technology, which allows something physical like a prescription bottle bar code to communicate wirelessly with your devices,” Hart said in an interview.
NFC could also help patients and their caregivers manage chronic diseases remotely, he said. For example, a patient with hypertension who takes an enzyme-inhibiting drug daily to reduce his blood pressure could suffer or even die from a stroke or heart attack if he missed a dose or several doses. Hart said data about the patient’s compliance with his prescription, on the level of an individual bottle, would be transmitted wirelessly with NFC tags and could alert medical personnel that he might be in danger.
Early Adopters
Labels featuring barcodes or QR codes can redirect a smartphone or tablet to a website, although Hart said that the radio communication technology used by NFC offers multiple uses. “The beauty of an NFC tag is that it can be read without any Internet connectivity, since the information is stored on the chip within the tag. Pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and other health providers can also use NFC technology to monitor recalls, distribution and inventory directly via individual packaging.”
One early adopter of Identiv’s NFC tags is HealthID Inc., a company marketing an NFC-based solution for managing chronic disease management information.
“The system also includes an application that users can download on their phone or tablet for use in helping with chronic conditions by managing their taking of medications or monitoring other health-related tasks they must perform daily,” Hart said.
Take a look at the full article here.