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Wednesday, November 9, 2016

New Option For Pharmacy/Anesthesia Labels

The Institute for Safe Medication Practice has issued designed principals for safe medication labeling (http://www.ismp.org/tools/guidelines/labelFormats/comments/default.asp).    I wrote about these recommendations in an earlier post: 


ClariSafe Label
ClariSafe Label
But how many prescription labels do you see with larger fonts, highlights, pill images and printed on-demand color warnings?  Virtually none.

And did you know the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) issued some years ago recommendations anesthesia labeling. 


As I understand, these recommendations for anesthesia have been widely accepted, but not fully implemented.

Anesthesia Example Label
Anesthesia Example Label
So why would one set of recommendations be accepted for safer labels, but not the others?  Although I have don’t know for sure, I would bet the primary reason is the printer hardware cost and size.

Pharmacies can’t or don’t want to spend the money for new, color printers.  Current color label printer options cost over $1,000; and as much as $1,800.   To move to color across the world would cost millions of dollars.

In addition, current color label printers would take a great deal of desktop real estate.  Pharmacies have limited space for printing labels.

Now, a new option is available for the printing of color labels on-demand for pharmacies and anesthesia departments.  The ClariSafe printer provides a lower cost and smaller footprint option to print pharmacy labels on-demand.

ClariSafe Label Printer from Addmaster
ClariSafe Label Printer from Addmaster
The ClariSafe Label Printer comes from Addmaster (www.addmaster.com).   For over 52 years, Addmaster has used technology to improve how businesses work— increasing productivity, lowering operating costs and improving profitability. Since the early 1980’s Addmaster has developed and manufactured inkjet printing solutions for the world’s most unique and demanding applications. They have installed over 350,000 Addmaster Inkjet printers worldwide. A hallmark of Addmaster’s design philosophy is to elevate inkjet technology to the highest levels of performance and durability. Today, a vast number of inkjet printers installed decades ago are still in use.

When reviewing the ClariSafe printer, I see two negatives; but a great deal of positives.  As for negatives, you will not use the ClariSafe printer to create label masterpieces.  Although the printer has up to 1200 dpi resolution, you would not use this resolution for production printing.  You need to see this printer as an inexpensive means to produce color coded labels with the capability to add images; at a price much less than using Zebra’s IQ color. 


With IQ color, you have to order special labels with a preexisting color area made into the label.  You have only a limited number of monochrome colors in a predetermined area.  In addition, you do not have the capability to add images.  The ClariSafe label printer is a much better option for anyone using IQ Color.

In addition to print quality, the second negative is currently no Windows driver exists for the ClariSafe printer. Addmaster has an application to select the image you want to print as a TIFF file; and print on-demand.  But according to Alex Shaffer, Director of Business Development for Addmaster, “we’ll create the application to meet the customer’s need for print on-demand color labels.  With our background in creating unique applications in the banking industry, we have the capability to build browser-based or PDF printing applications for our pharmacy and healthcare customers as well.”

ClariSafe Printing Application
ClariSafe Printing Application

With only 2 negatives, the ClariSafe printer offers many positives.  First, the printer costs only $599.90; 40% less than the current least expensive color label printer and 1/3 the price of the largest selling, affordable color label printer; the C3500.  Alex says, “working with our partner, HP, we created the ClariSafe printer to make it easy and affordable way for pharmacies, healthcare providers and other companies to print color labels on-demand.”  For this new printer, Addmaster used color inkjet technology from HP.  But unlike other HP partner companies, Addmaster created a new printer; not just repurposed an existing printer.  “With our background in producing hundreds of thousands of inexpensive inkjet printers, Addmaster knew how to bring to market an affordable, low cost label printer” says Alex.

Second, the ClariSafe printer has a very fast time to first print.  Watch me print a label using this new printer.


Third, the ClariSafe printer is small; only 7” x 11” x 6”.  This size makes it perfect for desktops where space may be a premium.

ClariSafe
ClariSafe
Fourth, the ClariSafe printer uses either continuous or die cut labels; from .5” to 2.5” wide.  With the built-in cutter, you can cut labels to length.  Changing the firmware enables you to use die cut labels as well.  The capability to print small labels and 2D barcodes at a high resolution may make this printer perfect for small electronic labels containing very tiny barcodes.  Currently available 600 DPI thermal transfer printers for electronic barcode labels cost thousands of dollars.

ClariSafe Ink Cartridge
ClariSafe Ink Cartridge
Fifth, the Clarisafe printer uses only one, tri-color cartridge that you can change in seconds.  And when changing the cartridge, you change the printhead, making plug nozzles a thing of the past.  HP’s Inkjet Technology drives the printing; and enables the constant updating of the printhead.  According to Alex, “no plugged nozzles means little to no ink is consumed cleaning inkjet nozzles.  At most, picoliters (1 trillionth of a liter) are wasted. So more ink is available to use to print, lowering your printing cost. Given the low amount of ink is wasted, no maintenance kits are required to hold the wasted ink.  The HP technology makes affordable label printing possible.”

ClariSafe is an interesting new development in the on-demand color label printing market.  If you want to start meeting the recommendations for safer pharmacy or anesthesia labels in color and on-demand; or need an inexpensive way to print color coded labels, contact us to discuss how ClariSafe printer could fit your operation.

Guy Mikel
855-962-7670

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