We're proud to announce that we now have patent pending status on several more innovations to the US Patent Office.  These concern UPN identification and data capture software and hardware.  Look for corresponding new product announcements soon!!

02/10/2000

As we participate in healthcare bar code and e-commerce standards development, we thought you might like to know about this.  Everyone knows about Data Matrix and PDF417.  They're widely used and supported.  This gives both product manufacturers/labelers and hospitals new opportunities to use bar code technology.  For hospitals, this means that their clinical systems can be further integrated into the caregiving process to improve patient safety.

This is a significant development.  Look for MORE content soon on this subject!!

01/01/2000

If your firm is struggling with the Allegiance Replenishment 2000 Project, you're not alone.  We have direct experience with these specifications (both bar code and EDI) and can assist you at any level in your efforts to meet these requirements.  These requirements have an impact that is not readily recognized by many health care product manufacturers and repackagers.  We suggest that you have us walk you through these requirements in the context of your current business processes and methods, to prevent costly rework later.

Update: read the article that describes the progress made on this project and its benefits to patient safety.

12/15/1999

We're members of the EHCR™ Electronic Commerce / Information Technologies workgroup, and the Inventory Management Workgroup. 

12/01/1999

The December 1999 issue features an article by Michael Miller about the pitfalls involved with bar code labeling of patient specimens and the coming changes brought on by the Internet in this area.

11/04/1999

We're members of this workgroup that is working out the best methods for implementing the new UCC symbologies for healthcare product marking.  Watch here for information about our new site dedicated to small package bar coding and 2-D bar codes, including unit dose packages.

10/01/1999

Look in the August 9,  1999 issue for an article from Michael Miller.  It describes how using the Health Industry Bar Code Provider Applications Standard can overcome the problems and challenges involved with specimen identification using bar code symbols.

Look in the February 1999 issue for an article from Michael Miller.  It describes the current efforts underway to begin standardization of Radio Frequency Identification (RF-ID) technologies as they apply to the healthcare industry, particularly in patient care.

Look in the July 1998 issue for a one-page article from Michael Miller.  It will describe the current status and future direction of enabling technologies as it applies to the healthcare products packaging, including the use of handheld OCR for applications where even 2-D bar codes won't fit on packaging!

$175.00
416 pp., illus.
ISBN:
0-8247-0199-2

Regulatory Aspects, Max Sherman
Package Specifications, William S. Vrabel
Packaging Materials, Carl D. Marotta
Package Sterilization Methods, Carl W. Bruch and Robert R. Reich
Bar-Code Labeling, Michael Miller
International Standards and Compliance, Denis G. Dyke
Package Validation, Donald S. Barcan and Harold F. Miller
Environmental Packaging Design, Frank J. Hajduk
Storage Autoclave Case Systems and Instrument Cassette Designs, Stephen F. Spencer
Packaging Needs for the Health-Care Facility, Marimargaret Reichert
Glossary

You can order it from the publisher's website, Marcel Dekker Inc., the premier publisher of medical, electronic, and communications texts.

We were one of the featured lecturers at this informative and historic session.   Visit the HIBCC website for registration and details on the next session(s) scheduled for 1999.

If you need to create EPS (Postscript) bar code graphics for electronic publishing, we recommend Bar Code Pro v 3.5 (Mac AND Win 95).  It can automatically format your UPN bar code to be compliant with the HIBCC/UCC standards.  Our endorsement of this product is your guarantee of satisfaction.  Contact us for more information, or see the Bar Code Pro page.

We're in the February/March 1998 issue with an article about hospital bar coding.   You can see our advertisement also in the inaugural issue.  Look for another informative article in the upcoming issue.

LOVES PARK, Ill.--(BW HealthWire) via Individual Inc. -- Jan. 28, 1998--Karen Longe of Karen Longe & Associates and Michael Miller of Systemme INFORMATICA jointly announced today an alliance targeted at providing hospitals with expert assistance in education, strategies, and systems for the implementation of bar code technology.

"Studies have shown that this technology offers a significant potential for cost reduction and improving the quality of patient care," said Karen Longe, President of Karen Longe & Associates.

Ms. Longe and Mr. Miller are recognized as the top experts and innovators in this arena.

"Combined, we bring to the hospital community unmatched expertise and perspective that addresses the full set of requirements when considering, planning, and implementing this complex technology," commented Miller.

Karen Longe & Associates, located in Lake Bluff Ill., provides education and strategies for healthcare automation. Systemme INFORMATICA, located in Loves Park, Illinois, provides bar code systems implementation services for the healthcare industry.

[Copyright 1998, Business Wire]

We can support your needs with printers, software and scanners for Codablock-F.   Codablock-F is a structured concatenation rule set for Code-128, and is gaining in popularity in Europe, especially the Dental sector.  Contact us with your requirements.

You'll see us at the HEDIC (Healthcare EDI Coalition) meetings talking about UPN standards, printing, and scanning.

We provide Ethicon, Inc. a world class medical-surgical product company with consultation, software, digital graphics and hardware for their UPN requirements.   They are very serious about full complaince with the UPN initiative, labeling all package levels including unit packages with UPN identifiers and bar code symbols.

automatically translates both UCC/EAN and HIBCC symbols

"Now both the bar code symbology AND the data structure can be auto-discriminated," states Michael Miller, Chief Technical Consultant at systemmé INFORMATICA. "IDENTICA-UPN eliminates a large implementation hurdle and clears the way for turn-key bar code systems in healthcare."

"UPN bar codes are like envelopes that contain a data message," explains Miller. "UPN bar codes contain special characters that identify them as healthcare bar codes. And they have over a dozen different formats for printing product ID, lot, expiration date and quantity information. IDENTICA-UPN deals with ALL of these. IDENTICA-UPN reads the bar code and extracts the message from the envelope and passes it on to the host application. There's no need for scanner programming, wedge programming, and so on."

The algorithms and programming code within the IDENTICA-UPN scanner are patent pending.

. . . in its September 1997 issue contains an article about packaging technology in which Michael Miller of INFORMATICA is interviewed as part of a group of industry experts.

Special Healthcare Bar Code Seminars were held May 12, 1997 at ID EXPO. Michael Miller of I N F O R M A T I C A  lectured there about bar coding and the health industry.

Another one of the worlds largest healthcare products companies, has retained INFORMATICA and Rachel Foerster and Associates to provide information and guidance for all of their divisions toward developing a corporate bar code strategy, including their european operations. This includes technical assessment, packaging, manufacturing, packaging, and distribution operations, bar code data structures and symbology, equipment, software, and communications infrastructure, as well as an overall plan for moving into the next century with these electronic commerce technologies.

One of the worlds largest healthcare products companies, has retained INFORMATICA to provide information and guidance for all of their divisions toward developing a corporate bar code strategy. J&J said, "We knew you were the ones to help us with this". And they're right. Whether your firm is large or small, our truthful unbiased advice, services and pricing can accomodate your requirements. Don't hesitate to contact us.

The February 1997 Issue of Automatic I.D. News carries an article about healthcare bar coding written by Michael Miller of INFORMATICA.

INFORMATICA and GrafTek, Inc. have allied to bring you the first and easiest to use bar code labeling software for the healthcare products supply chain. Label View Healthcare. Yet another breakthrough in healthcare products bar coding from INFORMATICA!

INFORMATICA was selected to design the bar coding data structures for the Ames Research Center's Life Science Data Archive Biospecimen Inventory Database. Tissue samples from all life forms sent into space for study and their corresponding ground controls will be bar-coded according to the HIBCC Provider Applications Standard, the ANSI standard for bar coding in the medical/healthcare fields.

The system will be implemented as well on the new Space Station 'Freedom'.

Rest assured, when the experts need to know, they call INFORMATICA!

INFORMATICA has been selected to be part of a blue-ribbon panel of experts to advise the Assistant Secretary of Defense and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff concerning automatic identification technologies, specifically 1-D and 2-D bar code technology for supporting systems for the next generation 'war-fighters'.

INFORMATICA recently completed the installation of a UPN-compliant bar code labeling system at Corpak MedSystems, a leading manufacturer of quality enteral feeding tubes. Their system was up and running on the first day. INFORMATICA also performed all of their label layout and design. Their labels are printed in blue. Read what the trade press had to say about it.

INFORMATICA recently completed an advisory project for Rusch AG. This multinational manufactuer of medical and surgical supplies has developed a global bar code labeling policy and bar code specifications based on the consulting delivered by INFORMATICA. The recommendations included the use of the UCC/EAN SCC-14 , which is an emerging UCC/EAN standard for primary product identification.