Ensuring Quality Through a Wireless IoT-Enabled Medication Monitoring Device

Challenge:

A leading global OEM of technology solutions and services saw an opportunity to use IoT technologies to improve pharmaceutical tracking, a critical function in ensuring the proper distribution of prescription drugs. Issues often arise in the process such as drug counterfeiting, environmental conditions and patient compliance with dosage instructions that can adversely affect patient outcomes and drug efficacy. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, and pharmacists needed a way to track and address these issues to ensure that prescription medication reaches the right patient without tampering.

The OEM was challenged to create a robust wireless solution that provides smart packaging, asset tracking, and counterfeit protection. In an increasingly competitive market, the key to their success would be creating an innovative solution – and delivering it quickly to market. Could Lantronix provide an embedded solution that securely relays information in real-time to the cloud management system and allows for reliable end-to-end asset tracking for prescription drugs?

Key Requirements:

• Highest levels of encryption and security to ensure data assets are protected over the network
• Flexible to allow secure updates
• Seamless remote access to device data
• Easy to integrate design and compact footprint
• Simple-to-deploy wireless IoT enablement solution

The Solution: Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi Embedded IoT

To provide the secure transfer of real-time information to track pharmaceutical processes, the OEM turned to the Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi embedded technology to provide robust and secure IoT enablement of their medication monitoring device. The device is an IoT-enabled product that offers smart packaging, asset tracking, and counterfeit protection for prescription medication. When the seal on the packaging is disturbed, the information is relayed electronically in real-time to the cloud management system to allow pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, and pharmacists to track and address these issues.

The Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi embedded IoT solution establishes two different but simultaneous Wi-Fi access modes – one that provides secure connectivity to the cloud and the other that allows the local installation engineer access to commission the device. Through its web hosting capability, the OEM can use the soft access point to customize the device for the end-user’s application – whether it’s providing updated patient dosage information or alerts, unique ID information that will allow the pharmacist to verify the authenticity of the pharmaceuticals, or other information.

The Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi solution provides the medication monitoring device with the secure connectivity needed to track the shipment, delivery, and distribution of prescription drugs from the drug manufacturer to the pharmacist and ultimately to the patient. Relaying asset-tracking information in real-time helps ensure that the right medication is getting in the hands of the right patient, potentially saving lives and improving drug efficacy.

Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi Deployment Application: Secure and Reliable Medication Delivery Tracking

Results:

• Cost effective – Saves the OEM from expending valuable resources on configuring and enabling IoT-connectivity
• Information is relayed reliably in real-time over robust Wi-Fi connection and accessible securely via smartphones and tablets
• Implementation is quick and easy
• Secure, simultaneous and independent access to the device by the service technician, OEM, and pharmacist
• The manufacturer leads the competition with an innovative, award-winning solution

About the Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi

Reduce your development costs, shorten your time to market, and leverage mobile solutions with the xPico Wi-Fi, one of the world’s smallest and most flexible embedded Wi-Fi IoT modules. The xPico Wi-Fi provides low power, simultaneous soft AP and client mode, full IP and WLAN stacks, and includes an industry best 5-year warranty.

Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi Key Benefits:

• Easy to deploy and use: No need for software development or to write a single line of code.
• Simultaneous Soft AP and Client mode: Allowing for easy points of access while maintaining a secure network without the need for special clients.
• Mobile-ready: Enables direct access to device data via smartphones, tablets and connected PCs.
• Robust: Device server application suite hardened by Lantronix over the last decade.
• Secure: 256-bit AES Encryption.
• Industrial-ready: Operating environment at extended temperatures: -40° to +85° C.
• Standards-based: Conforms to latest WLAN and IP internetworking standards ensuring interoperability with a broad range of deployed equipment.
• Customizable: Designed with customizable capabilities for rapid OEM adoption.
• Power: Low-power profile optimized for battery-powered devices.
• Peripheral Connectivity: Serial, SPI, USB (device), GPIOs.
• Form Factor: Compact footprint available in both SMT (castellation) and B2B connector options.
• Guaranteed: 5-Year limited warranty

Learn More about the Lantronix xPico Wi-Fi