Kopytin Georgy
Champion Healthcare Technologies has partnered with global healthcare information company Vuemed to provide a medical device that tracks hospitals and help them achieve compliance, save money and protect their patients.
Champion and VUEMED will offer a single platform that takes advantage of unique device identifiers (UDIs), codes that must be affixed to all medical devices under US food and drug administration (FDA) regulations.
Over the last two years, the FDA has mandated that all implantable devices must be labeled with a unique identifier and a production identifier, which has a number or serial number and expiration date. By 2018 most healthcare supplies will have to be compliant with the UDI regulation.
The companies claim that the ability to fully utilize UDIs offers a range of advantages for healthcare providers.
“Both companies are pioneers in UDI compliance – Champion with its history in tissue tracking and implantable devices and VUEMED in a broad range of devices and supplies management,” said Arnold Chazal, chief executive officer and co-founder of VUEMED.
“We have been operating on parallel tracks, with the same vision of bringing global product identification standards to healthcare, as well as clarity and accuracy of data, to achieve greater efficiencies and cost savings.
“So it is a natural progression for us to come together to provide a more integrated and comprehensive offering.”
Peter Casady, chief executive officer and co-founder of Champion, added: “The unified platform will help hospitals more easily make the decision to adopt a single supply tracking solution that addresses all their need“
“Our UDITracker™ solution and VUEMED’s ecosystem of RFID-based technologies together will be able to track anything from tissue to devices and beyond, even including assets and people. Both our companies share the same vision of a one-stop shop that can handle all tracking and chain-of-custody concerns.”
In the next few years, new regulations on Meaningful Use of health information technology will mandate the capturing of UDIs in electronic health records by participating healthcare providers.
“Compliance will be a powerful reason to adopt a tracking platform, but the savings hospitals can achieve almost immediately should be incentive enough to act today,” Casady added. “Ultimately, it is the right thing to do for patients.”
Champion Healthcare, Healthcare, IT, Risk management, US
