UC Davis Health, a 653-bed academic medical center in Sacramento, California, has earned repeated recognition from College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) as one of the nation’s “Most Wired” healthcare organizations. The distinction reflects the institution’s commitment to using advanced technologies to enhance both clinical operations and patient outcomes. That commitment extends deep into its pharmacy department, where radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is reshaping how medications are tracked and managed across the health system.
For pharmacy teams, maintaining emergency carts and medication kits has traditionally been a labor-intensive task. Depending on the size of a healthcare network, staff may be responsible for verifying hundreds of crash carts and emergency kits every day—a process that historically relied on meticulous manual counting to ensure critical medications were stocked and ready when needed.
“Your health system, depending on its size, may be doing hundreds of code carts and hundreds of emergency kits each day. In the past, it required a lot of manual counting to make sure the necessary drugs were where they were expected to be,” said Ryan Cello, Pharmacy Manager of Automation, Informatics, Analytics & Diversion Detection at UC Davis Health.
To streamline those repetitive workflows, UC Davis Health integrated RFID technology into its anesthesia automated dispensing machines (ADMs). The implementation provides pharmacy teams with real-time visibility into medication inventories throughout perioperative areas, creating a continuously updated view of stock levels and locations.
The impact has been significant. RFID-enabled systems simplify the replenishment of emergency medication kits, reduce time spent on manual inventory checks, and help ensure clinicians have immediate access to the medications they need. At the same time, the technology strengthens safeguards around medication accuracy and patient safety at the bedside.
RFID solutions shaping the next generation of pharmacy operations
While RFID has already delivered meaningful operational improvements, Cello believes the technology’s most transformative applications are still ahead.
He points to the next wave of automated dispensing machines, which could incorporate RFID-enabled drawers directly into the hardware. Such systems would allow medication inventories to be tracked continuously and with greater precision, providing real-time counts without the need for manual verification.
Future platforms may also include embedded RFID readers capable of monitoring patient-specific medications and controlled substances as they move throughout the care environment.
“There will even be, perhaps, an opportunity to have RFID tags tied to an order number that will automatically update the electronic medical record when a medication is put in a machine or taken out,” he added.
Beyond inventory management, UC Davis Health is exploring how robotics could further automate medication distribution processes. Cello’s team is currently evaluating potential collaborations with robotics providers to determine whether automated systems could handle replenishment tasks for dispensing machines, trays, and medication kits.
“It’s possible that this robotic solution could replenish trays overnight and then we could check them with the RFID reader to help take away the repetitive manual replenishment processes,” he said. “It would save us a lot of time and decrease redundant repetitive work.”
If successful, the combination of robotics and RFID could create a highly automated medication supply chain, allowing pharmacy staff to focus more on clinical priorities and less on routine operational tasks.
Why standardization remains critical
As healthcare organizations invest in increasingly sophisticated medication management technologies, interoperability has emerged as a major concern.
For UC Davis Health, any future system must be capable of working seamlessly with all medication products, including pharmaceuticals that arrive from manufacturers with RFID tags already attached.
“Having a single, interoperable standard would make things much simpler and allow us to expand how we use RFID technologies in different ways,” Cello said. “I worry about future systems that are fragmented where you have one system that works with one type of tag, but you need a different system for other tags. If we continue that way, we’re just going to set ourselves up for failure.”
Cello advocates for broader industry alignment around a common RFID framework, such as the GS1 RFID standard. Much like standardized GS1 barcodes transformed product identification across industries, a universal RFID standard could create a shared language for medication tracking systems, dispensing technologies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Such interoperability would not only simplify implementation but also help unlock the full potential of RFID across healthcare settings—improving efficiency, reducing complexity, and reinforcing patient safety throughout the medication-use process.
“More pharmacy teams need to work with RFID solution providers to share use cases and show them why standardization is important,” he said. “We need to continue pushing for interoperability and we need more influence from other organizations about their medication use processes to drive that message home.”
As hospitals continue their digital transformation efforts, RFID is increasingly moving beyond inventory tracking and becoming a foundational technology for a more connected, automated, and intelligent medication management ecosystem—one where visibility, accuracy, and patient safety remain at the center of every decision.
