To save time for hospital pharmacists in restocking and tracking pharmacy kits, a digital health startup is finding success using RFID tagging and looking to bring its platform into new facilities.
Kit Check just closed in on $10.4 million from New Leaf Venture Partners, Sands Capital Ventures, Easton Capital Investment Group and LionBird. CEO Kevin MacDonald said the funds will go toward expanding his sales and delivery team to get the product in as many hospitals as possible.
The company’s product applies radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to medication kits and trays, which are used in hospital emergency departments and operating rooms to give clinicians quick access to the drugs and supplies they might need in certain situations.
After they’re used, these kits are traditionally manually inspected by pharmacy technicians, who check the expiration dates on all of the drugs left inside and replenish the ones that have been used. Then the technicians hand the kits off to a pharmacist, who re-checks them and manually fills out the necessary documentation before sealing the kit and sending it back to the hospital floor.
That takes upwards of 20 minutes and leaves lots of room for human error. KitCheck automates the technician’s role by attaching an RFID tag to each drug in a kit. When the kit is placed into a scanner, the accompanying software within seconds tells the technician what’s missing and which drugs are outdated or about to expire, and generates a charge sheet. It also tracks inventory and works the other way around, so hospitals can locate recalled medications in kits throughout the hospital.
This method, which went live last year, has shown a 90 percent reduction in replenishing times, according to CEO Kevin MacDonald. Seven hospitals are currently using it, including the University of Maryland Medical Center, and nine more are scheduled for implementation within the next month.
Washington, D.C.-based Kit Check is a graduate of Rock Health’s accelerator program.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
