Implanet, a French manufacturer of implantable medical devices, has begun marketing an RFID-based system that it says will help it track the location of its products after they are manufactured and shipped to hospitals, while hospital employees can utilize the system for inventory management, billing, and product recalls and expirations.
Implanet designed the solution and deployed it at its own facilities in April 2008. The system is now being used by approximately 35 French hospitals, as well as by Implanet itself, at its assembly plant. Known as Beep N Track, the system enables the company and hospitals to share data regarding the location of unused implantable devices, as well as when specific items were used, when product inventories need to be replenished, and when hospitals need to be billed.
