The future of medical packaging design is here, and countries around the world are racing to meet new, international standards in the next few years. Large scale pharma track and trace standards have been developed to address practical concerns: in the event of an extensive medication recall, packaging services and distribution providers need to be able to rapidly contact individual pharmacies, doctors, and hospitals.
Most Americans have taken at least one prescription medication within the past year, and new medical packaging techniques can also allow patients an enhanced sense of trust that their medications have not been tampered with: medical packaging companies are continually developing new materials for prescription medications.
Pharmacies and doctors have millions of individual prescriptions to keep track of: there are more than 250 million prescriptions issued by a variety of health care providers every single year in American alone. The best medical packaging techniques now involve e-pedigree serialisation, which is an electronic method of keeping track of small groups of medications.
The goal, of course, is to minimize prescription fraud and counterfeiting worldwide, and the best medical packaging techniques have been developed to aid health care consumers. Every American is familiar with traditional “tamper free” bottles, and new blister packaging provides more security to pharmacies and consumers.
The term “blister packaging” simply refers to a combination of plastic and foil where pills are separated individually. Already quite common for over-the-counter allergy and sleep medication, blister packaging design has evolved considerably for prescription and federally-regulated medications. There is now medical blister packaging that is child safe, and bar codes and tracking codes can tell manufacturers where their medication is being used – anywhere in the world.
Volunteer medical organizations have to place special priority on making sure that the medications they use are free of contamination. Every year, scientists and doctors volunteer their time in locations around the world, working with citizens of every country to ensure that vaccination schedules are being adhered to and that children in particular are receiving the same medical care they could receive in an American hospital.
Medical volunteers around the world increasingly rely on pharmaceutical serialisation and e-pedigree solutions to track and to confirm that they are dispensing the proper medication. World health organizations recently confirmed that volunteer-driven vaccination efforts can prevent more than 2 million cases of illness every year, and that widespread efforts to provide vaccinations and health care in foreign countries are gaining momentum.
More than 20 million children around the world still need to be vaccinated, and volunteer relief organizations are grateful to have the ability to track and validate pharmaceutical distribution records. In the unlikely event of a contaminated batch of vaccines, organizations can quickly pinpoint distribution sites and issue widespread recalls. In the near future, health care consumers around the world may receive cell phone notifications in the event of an unplanned medication recall.
The best medical packaging techniques both meet the need of the consumer and of the distributor, and as flexible medical packaging and pharmaceutical serialisation methods continue to shift and evolve, people who regularly take prescription medication should be assured of increased security features at their local pharmacies. And worldwide, the fight toward universal vaccination will benefit from rigorous electronic security protocols.
