Jerry Fahrni

The ValiMed Medication Validation System by CDEX, Inc.

According to the ValiMed website:

CDEX’s technology stands alone, able to precisely identify medications in real time with its patented Enhanced Photoemission Spectroscopy technology.

Energy at a preset wavelength interrogates the selected substance, capturing a unique emission spectrum which is then compared to the propriety signature, resulting in a simple “VALIDATED” reading when matched.

Each medication reveals its own distinct and easily readable signature. By comparing the fingerprint of a tested medication against the signature for that medication in our data library, the ValiMed technology is able to verify a match, presuming there is one.

The ValiMed Medication and Narcotic Validation System offers superior value to hospital medication safety programs and quality control processes by:

- Providing immediate, real-time validation of the substance itself.

- Providing an opportunity to standardize and optimize internal medication safety processes including Training, QA and Regulatory Compliance.

- Providing a real-time means of validating narcotic returns and mitigating narcotic diversion.

- Providing pharmacy staff and clinicians with a simple, fast, straightforward and cost-effective way to ensure that the RIGHT drug in the RIGHT dose is administered to the patient.

Photoemission Sprectroscopy refers to the energy measurement of electrons emitted from the liquid as energy, light, passes through it. Remember the photoelectric effect? No, me neither. Anyway, as the light passes through the liquid is gives off a unique spectrum that is captured by a spectrometer. This allows for the identification of the substance via the spectrum emitted from or absorbed by the liquid; in this case a drug.

ValiMed can quickly validate medication admixtures, including controlled substances, to insure accuracy for patient safety as well as to discourage diversion. Depending on the solution being tested the ValiMed system can perform a comparison in anywhere from 1 second to 1 minute with as little as 0.15mL of fluid. The system has a library of approximately 200 medication signatures that are compared to the expected spectroscopic results of the medication in question. The system returns results of “Validated” or “Not Validated”; pretty simple. Results obtained by the ValiMed system are stored indefinitely and can be printed by the user on demand for reporting purposes. ValiMed looks like some pretty cool technology and something that I would certainly like to see in action.