Developed by Singapore IT solutions firm The Corporate Machine, or TCM, the new wireless scanning system will be deployed in two National Healthcare Group (NHG) hospitals by June.

The system will make drug administration safer than before, an NHG spokesman told BizIT. Called the Electronic Medication Administration System, it lets doctors and nurses perform electronic verification at the point of medication administration to ensure that the right medicine and dosage is dispensed each time.

'This is in line with NHG's mission to improve health and reduce illness through patient-centred quality healthcare,' said the spokesman.

NHG, however, declined to name which two hospitals will be fitted with the new system come June. NHG members include Alexandra Hospital, National University Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Institute of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Singapore and National Skin Centre.

Via the EDAs, staff will be able to quickly access patient information that are stored in the hospital's central database, such as prescription dosages and past records

This way, hospital staff will be able to confirm that they are indeed administering the right medicine in the proper dosage.

The system is also an interactive one, allowing hospital staff to input new information such as changes in prescriptions or patients' allergies.

The initial launch will see some 300 Motorola EDAs being deployed in two NHG hospitals.

TCM RFiD managing director Michael Oh described the solution as being able to help hospital staff to accurately dispense 'the right drug, right dosage to the right patient, at the right time, and by the right method - whether orally, intravenously or by injections'.

TCM RFiD is a division of TCM. The three-year-old company was named a winner in the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) last year for the development of the system that will soon be used by NHG.

TCM claims that its solution is the first of its kind in Asia.

RFID is a wireless data collection technology that uses tiny electronic tags for storing and transmitting data. Both bar codes and RFID tags identify the items tagged. However, RFID tags are far more versatile than bar codes since they do not require line of sight to read. RFID tags can thus be embedded. They can also be read by proximity sensors over a longer distance than bar codes.

The use of RFID in the healthcare industry, especially to help identify drugs and monitor hospital staff movement, is a fast-rising trend. One research source puts the global RFID healthcare market at US$85 million in 2007. This is expected to surge to more than US$2 billion by 2017.

Given that patient records are highly sensitive, stringent security measures have been built into the NHG system, said Mr Oh. For instance, transmitted data is fully encrypted.

In addition, no information will be stored in the EDA itself - only within secured, central servers. Round-the-clock alarm procedures have also been put in place to alert staff if there is an out-of-norm delay in the data transmission between the EDA and database.

Besides improving the trust level in medicine administration, the new technology will also help to improve hospital workflow management, by cutting down the need to look for paper files, Mr Oh said.

He added: 'It frees up time for staff to provide better quality care to patients.'