"Pharmaceutical Review", 2002, N 8
BAR CODING IN PHARMACY:
POSSIBILITIES AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Bar coding of goods is a technology that allows using special devices to apply and read digital product codes. The digital code is represented as a set of lines of various widths. All you need to understand to use this technology is that a barcode is just a set of numbers (rarely other symbols) that are represented as a sequence of lines for quick recognition. The philistine opinion is erroneous that the barcode contains full information about the product: from the name to the manufacturer. A barcode is just a set of characters, but this set associates a specific instance of a product with information about the product that is stored in a database. So, barcodes give us the keys to "quick access" to information, thereby facilitating the routine and time-consuming operation - the search for this information.
What barcodes are used in production?
Most modern consumer goods already come with barcodes printed on the packaging. Two bar coding standards are currently used in the world: EAN-8 and EAN-13. The difference is only in the length of the character sequence - 8 and 13, respectively. In general trade, it is reasonable to use ready-made barcodes. For pharmacy trade enterprises, the use of ready-made barcodes causes certain difficulties. The reason is the serial accounting of medicines, that is, the retail price may differ from the delivery option and, accordingly, from the supplier's price. In practice, in pharmacies there are often cases of frequent changes in batches of medicines, this leads to the accumulation of goods with different prices. All production barcodes differ only by type of goods, but not by specific instances of goods. This means that a pharmacy may have several products with the same barcode but different selling prices. For ordinary stores, the situation "one barcode - one price" is quite normal. Meanwhile, the bar code on the product is the equivalent of both the price and the name of the purchase. If two products differ in price, then they must have different barcodes.
How to print your own barcodes?
Despite the fact that most of the products entering the trade already have ready-made barcodes, there are still situations that require additional labeling of products with barcodes. There can be three reasons:
The product simply does not have a barcode. This applies to cheap goods, the manufacturer of which did not consider it necessary to label their products;
The product contains a barcode, but it is not recognized when scanning. The reason is either physical damage to the barcode lines, or poor-quality coding by the manufacturer, who did not comply with the conditions of the coding standard. As a rule, this situation is typical for domestically produced goods;
The product contains a barcode, it is even recognized when scanning, but the same barcode is present on another product. The reason is that the manufacturer “saves” on barcodes and uses one barcode for products of different subspecies, for example, apple puree and raspberry puree of the same package. As a rule, this situation is typical for domestically produced goods.
In the event of one of the described situations, it is necessary to ensure that the required products are labeled with barcodes. This task is easily solved with the help of a special thermal label printer. The printer allows you to print labels on a roll different sizes. Since labels are printed on self-adhesive tape, the process of gluing them is greatly simplified. The only task is not to repeat the barcode already used in production. For this, international standards recommend using the first two digits in the code from 20 to 29 - they are reserved for internal use.
How are barcodes scanned?
The easiest way to use barcodes in computer systems is to enter the code from the keyboard, since, as a rule, the digits of the code are printed along with the barcode. It is much easier and faster to enter barcode data with barcode scanners. A scanner is a device that uses a beam of light or a laser to read barcodes and convert them into digital sequences. In other words, the scanner performs the same work for the user (transfers code numbers to the computer), only many times faster. Currently, the market offers a wide range of imported scanners, which are laser or LED, manual or stationary (embedded), have various characteristics: scan speed, scan range, scan beam width.
For pharmacies, LED hand-held scanners with a scanning range of at least 10 centimeters are optimal in terms of price / quality ratio. Other parameters are not essential for quality work.
Applying bar coding
The most important advantage that the use of bar coding technology gives is the implementation of a quantitative accounting of goods. Quantitative accounting by "manual means" is a very time-consuming and unprofitable method. When using barcodes, personnel are charged routine task for the identification of goods. Components of quantitative accounting are almost all stages of commodity movement. At each stage, the use of barcoding creates significant convenience for staff.
Work with documents
The main work of the pharmacy staff in the inventory department is the input of data on commodity documents: receipt, movement, consumption, etc. Each document contains a list of product nomenclature, the input of which can take a sufficient amount of time, and most of the time is spent searching for the necessary items of goods in the database. The use of barcode scanners will reduce the input time of each position to the scanning time, which is no more than 1 second.
Retail
Automated retail is also easy to implement using barcode technology. When reading bar code the scanner from a combination of strokes restores the encoded number and transfers it to a computer or cash register. If an automated system has been introduced in a pharmacy, to which computer cash registers with barcode readers are connected (the so-called POS-terminals from the English. Point of Sale - "Points of sale"), then the presence of a barcode on all goods on the trading floor allows to reduce the time of customer service at cash registers (POS-terminals), and for the employee of the first desk to read the number from the packaging of the goods with a scanner in order to cash receipt the exact name of the purchase and its price were recorded.
In addition, when all the cash registers of the trading floor are connected to a single controlling device (computer), at any time it is possible to assess the actual sales volume, the level of demand, and place an order in advance for the warehouse to replenish stocks of goods on the shelves of the trading floor.
Inventory
The inventory process is a regular part of the work of the pharmacy staff. Inventory - quite laborious and often requires the cessation of trading for an extended period. The complexity of the process lies in the significant product range of the pharmacy. Obviously, this process can be significantly reduced by using commodity barcodes. Inventory can be carried out using scanners, but this option is suitable for small pharmacy warehouses. A more convenient inventory tool is data collection terminals. These devices not only scan the product, but also allow you to store data on all "scanned" products in memory.
It is possible to estimate the time required for pharmacy inventory using data collection terminals. Let's say the product range is approximately 2500 items. It takes 5-10 seconds to "count" all goods of one item. It turns out that real time, spent on one inventory, is no more than 4 hours.
A.KASATKIN
The Association assists in the provision of services in the sale of timber: at competitive prices on an ongoing basis. Timber products of excellent quality.
In chapter
Starting January 1, 2017, Russia will start labeling medicines with a special security code. This should not affect the price of tablets and medicines, however, as the authors of the idea hope, it will save the pharmacy market from counterfeit and counterfeit pharmaceutical products.
Initially, tablets were going to be marked with RFID tags, following the example of fur products (this project already earned). However, representatives of the Association of Russian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers informed the government that the cost of RFID tags is quite high and can be unpleasantly tangible for buyers' wallets. Pharmacists proposed to introduce two-dimensional barcodes of the DataMatrix type for marking, and they were supported in this by working group Roszdravnadzor. The consumer will be able to read such a code using a regular smartphone.
According to Roszdravnadzor and the analytical company RNC Pharma, the level of counterfeit in Russian pharmacies is about 0.2%.
For the budget, a pilot experiment with pills will cost about 275 million rubles, the total amount that the Ministry of Health expects to spend on introducing a labeling system is 14.22 billion.
In some places, DataMatrix tags, without waiting for peritonitis, began to be introduced by pharmaceutical manufacturers themselves. And they say that practice is good. Marking effectively counteracts counterfeit and falsification.
However, not everyone considers electronic marking a panacea for counterfeiting. Excise stamps for alcohol could not completely do away with fakes on the market alcoholic products. Moreover, a QR code is, in fact, the same barcode. It is not very difficult to copy and fake it, some market participants warn. Another purely pharmacy nuance is that foil is often used in drug packaging, which can complicate the reading of electronic labels, be it RFID or DataMatrix. However, that's what the "pilot" is for, to try out the innovation in the field and draw conclusions.
Responsible for the implementation of labeling medicines the Ministry of Health acts, the operator of the labeling system is the Federal Tax Service. Who exactly will become a software developer will determine the competition. It is possible that the same FSUE "Centrinform", which is already implementing a project for marking fur coats and hats.
From January 1, only some (rare and rather expensive) medicines will be labeled, manufacturers, pharmaceutical distributors and pharmacies will have to work out mechanisms for interaction within a year. If the pilot stage will pass Successfully, the labeling of medicines will become mandatory for all manufacturers of medicines from 2018, and at the same time it will increase quality control of medicines.
Vice Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Olga Golodets believes that the problem of fakes in the pharmaceutical market must be addressed systematically. The most effective approach is mandatory labeling of all medicines.
In theory, you need to watch not only what is already posted on the pharmacy counter. An all-encompassing drug labeling concept that Roszdravnadzor specialists developed in 2015, following the President’s order, according to which an automated monitoring system should track the full path of a drug from the production stage to the final consumer. It was planned to implement the concept in three stages: from January 1, 2017 - drugs for the treatment of rare diseases, from 2018 - those that are on the list of necessary and essential ones, from 2019 - all the rest. For some reason, we now decided to speed up. It is possible that the elections, industry experts suggest. But maybe someone else needs to accelerate the introduction of labeling. business interests.
The founder of JSC "National Pharmaceutical Register", which will unite all state registers of medicines (State Register medicines, the register of the Federal Institute of Industrial Property, the register of Roszdravnadzor, etc.) and supplement them with information on the movement of drugs from the manufacturer to the consumer, the Platforma company, which is headed by the head of the board of directors of SMP Bank, acts Artem Obolensky. The banker outlined his proposals on this matter in an appeal submitted to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (from where it came to the Ministry of Health). Access to the National Pharmaceutical Registry, as its representatives have already stated, will be paid. Market experts agree that this is a useful thing, as it will help optimize business processes, logistics, stocks in warehouses, improve quality control and price control, and the amount of tax deductions. But they object about paid access. Compensate for the costs of maintaining a single directory, pharmacists believe, should the state. In the "National Pharmaceutical Registry" object: participants in the pharmaceutical market must pay for the use of the database, since they have at their disposal the most valuable tool for reducing costs.
Until a decision on paid access is made, pharmacists are also thinking about the need to purchase special equipment for labeling drugs. To launch labeling from 2018, procurement and software need to plan now. This is where the hitch arises: it would be logical to complete the pilot project, analyze its results and issue recommendations: what and why is more profitable and better to buy. Now pharmacists will have to buy equipment and software “on a whim”, with a big risk of buying not what they need in the end. The cost of one pharmacy scanner is approximately 12-15 thousand rubles, and an industrial scanner that the manufacturer will need to buy costs several million. It is possible that, contrary to promises, these costs will still be included in the cost of the drugs themselves - in this case, prices in Russian pharmacies will be about 3%.
In a modern pharmacy, customers do not think about how a pharmacist will figure out which medicine among thousands of items costs how much. Spent the scanner on the packaging - received information about the price. Such automation was made possible thanks to just one invention - barcode.
After the introduction of a universal barcode, the marked product is easily identified in a properly equipped pharmacy.
Opportunities and practical application
If earlier, when a buyer asked about the availability of a particular drug, it took a long time to look for it on the trading floor or, even worse, run to the warehouse, now it is one keystroke on the computer. Now, together with the ePharma2 accounting automation program, the introduction of the bar coding method allows at any time:
- receive information about the presence or absence of the drug in the sales area or in the warehouse;
- know the exact number of residues for each drug and simplify the inventory procedure (you can re-register without closing the pharmacy);
- to analyze the turnover of medicines by groups and by individual commodity units; keeping track of minimum balances,
- plan the purchase of drugs in a timely manner;
- identify unprofitable and poorly demanded drugs, etc.
Internal and external barcodes: which one to choose?
ePharma2 allows you to keep track of for internal, and by factory barcodes. To simplify the factory barcode, we will call the Barcode, the internal barcode is just a barcode. Each of these methods has its pros and cons. Let's try to understand this issue in more detail.
Let's start from the fact that the same drug of different batches has the same Barcode. On the one hand, it is very convenient. In the program, once the Barcode was indicated for the goods, and now we use it when the goods arrive and leave.
On the other hand, we get the following problems:
- lack of opportunity to keep batch records;
- it is not clear which party was released at the box office and from which parish;
- from which supplier the batch was received.
Naturally, when conducting an inventory, there will be the same problem. What kind of party we have left on the shelf is unknown. Only by indirect signs (for example, a series and an expiration date) can this be determined. In principle, there will be no control over expiration dates if you keep records by Barcodes.
When accounting for an internal barcode, it is necessary to mark each package of goods with barcode labels at the time of arrival. This is an additional cost for a thermal printer, label tape and labeling work.
Let's summarize:
Barcode |
Barcode |
||
| pros |
- No need to label the product - Incoming, outgoing are carried out according to the barcode of the manufacturer |
Keeping batch records Expiry date control |
|
| Minuses |
- Lack of batch accounting - Problems with inventory - No control of the expiration date of the goods |
|
Barcode Equipment Purchase Costs |
Which option to use is up to you.ePharma2 supports both options.
Regardless of which option is selected, an internal barcode is automatically assigned to each batch upon receipt of goods.
When printing labels on a thermal printer, you can choose which type of barcode (external or internal) to print.
When goods are issued at the checkout, both types of barcodes will be issued.
If more than one batch is found for the factory barcode on the balance, then the user will be prompted to select the batch that will be dispensed at that moment.
When working in ePharma2, use internal barcoding.
If you are already working on Barcodes, then the transition process can be as follows:
- You start labeling all new arrivals of goods with labels with an internal barcode.
- For the parties that are on the leftovers, you can print the internal barcode from the form with the leftovers.