In recent years, there has been active advancement, mainly outside Japan, in assigning serial numbers to medical equipment due to tightening UDI regulations. Especially with the management of surgical instruments, there is a risk of preparing the incorrect surgical instruments, depending on a worker’s degree of proficiency, since they must select the needed instruments from among hundreds of differing kinds. The management of number of uses and history of use within hospitals has become an important issue in the medical community.
In response to this issue, Murata Manufacturing developed and began mass production of LXTBKZMCMG-010, an IC tag for surgical instruments, making use of a feature of UHF band RFID that allows multiple tags to be read all together from a distance. Since the tags are small and can be attached to metal surfaces, they could also be used for other applications besides surgical instruments.
This product will be exhibited at the 21st Auto-ID & Communication Expo to be held at Tokyo Bigsight from September 11 to 13, 2019.
Since surgical instruments are used after repeated cleaning and sterilization, attached IC tags must be durable and measures must be taken to prevent them from falling off. Murata and a partner company that provides services to medical institutions jointly assess quality points such as the attachment of tags to surgical instruments and the effect that has on the RFID signal.
UDI (Unique Device Identification) regulations
Laws and ordinances that require medical equipment to have individual identifiers (e.g., bar codes), for the safe usage and storage of medical equipment.
For more information visit https://www.murata.com/
