McKesson Corp. announced the launch of its latest RFID-based cabinets, designed to enable hospitals the ability to better manage expensive physician preference items (PPIs).

The cabinets use low-touch technology to automate control of high-dollar medical inventory, including stents, pacemakers, implants and orthopedic supplies. The cabinets enable hospital staff to manage inventories automatically and give nursing access to supplies quickly and easily.

A nurse can simply scan a badge, select the correct patient case with needed supplies and then go on rounds. Its built-in technology automatically captures the supply data and updates the clinical case and inventory. This also helps reduce the risk of adverse drug reactions by removing human error in the selection of drugs.

The RFID cabinets streamlines workflow and simplifies hospital supply chain management by automating critical supply functions at the point of use, including requisitioning, patient charging, inventory management and information capture.