My Clinic is in the United States
My Clinic is in CanadaRI Witness Product Guide
RI Witness Product Guide – US
Brady Printer Flyer – US
Brady Printer Flyer – International
RI Witness Comparison Booklet
RI Witness Comparison Booklet – US Only
RI Witness Patient Leaflet – International
RI Witness Patient Leaflet – US Only
RI Witness Patient Leaflet – German
1. Thornhill A, Orriols Brunetti X, Bird S, (2013). Measuring human error in the IVF laboratory using an electronic witnessing system. 17th World Congress on Controversies in Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Infertility, Lisbon. 1 Thornhill A, Orriols Brunetti X, Bird S, (2013). Measuring human error in the IVF laboratory using an electronic witnessing system. 17th World Congress on Controversies in Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Infertility, Lisbon.
2. Townsend N, Ah-Moye M, Bunyan K, Engley S, Evans D, Glover L, McClure A, Ogutu D, Richardson L, (2016). Can electronic witnessing with RFID tags safeguard patients and mitigate risk in an IVF laboratory?
3. Sanges F, Maggiulli R, Albricci L, Romano S, Scarica C, Schimberni M, Giallonardo A, Vattraino G, Ubaldi F, Rienzi L, (2013). Implementing an electronic witnessing system into a busy IVF clinic- one clinic’s experience.
4. Patel B, Schnauffer K, Gregoire, Kingsland CR, Troup S, (2013). An investigation into the efficiency of RFID electronic witnessing compared to manual witnessing.
5. Department of Health (2004). Independent review of the circumstances surrounding four adverse events that occurred in the Reproductive Medicine Units at The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. [online] London. Available at: http://www.who.int/patientsafety/information_centre/reports/Independent_review_Leeds.pdf [Accessed 12 May 2017].
6. Research Instruments Ltd. (2005). Test Report on Mouse testing of RFID Tagging System “IVF Witness”. Certificate of Analysis (Ectors, FJ, August 2005, GIGA Université de Liège,Belgium) Certificate of Calibration (Wragge-Morley, B. ETC, UK, May 2005) Certificate of Analysis (Pearce, J, May 2007, Embryotech, Wilmington USA)
7. Obradors, A. (2016). How can we mitigate the risk of error in the IVF Lab?
8. Forte, M., Faustini, F., Maggiulli, R., Scarica, C., Romano, S., Ottolini, C., Farcomeni, A., Palagiano, A., Capalbo, A., Ubaldi, F. and Rienzi, L. (2016). Electronic witness system in IVF – patients perspective. Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, 33(9), pp.1215-1222.
9. Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussels. (2020). IVF Witness in 2019, Internal Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussels presentation: Unpublished.
10. Mental health in the workplace. (2017). World Health Organization. [online] Available at: https://www.who.int/mental_health/in_the_workplace/en/.
11. Cooke, S. Low-risk laboratory management. In: Organization and Management of IVF Units: A Practical Guide for the Clinician. Eds: SD Fleming & AC Varghese. New York. Springer. 2016; Chapter 7: pp115-152.3. World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/mental_health/in_the_workplace/en/
2017 ESHRE presentation – An 8 year snapshot of insightful data using RI Witness: an absolute necessity for your IVF laboratory – Dr Stephen Troup Scientific Director, IVI UK
Q: What is RFID?
A. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify objects. Labels with tiny microchips embedded in them are attached to all plasticware such culture dishes, test tubes and patient identity cards before being assigned to a patient. These microchips are read by the RI Witness readers. There is no need to directly scan the labels, the whole process is automatic and many tags can be read simultaneously.
Q: How does the RFID label transmit the information?
A: RI Witness uses RFID tags and a reader. The reader sends out electromagnetic waves and the tag receives these waves. The RFID tag draws power from the field created by the reader and uses it to power the microchip’s circuits. The microchip then modulates the waves that the tag sends back to the reader and the reader converts the new waves into digital data.
Q: Are there any health risks associated with RFID and radio waves?
A: RI Witness uses a radio frequency similar to the signals received by your car radio. We have organised exhaustive independent Mouse Embryo Assay (MEA) studies to demonstrate that RI Witness RFID does not have any detrimental effect on the development of embryos. These tests used radio waves which are 700 times stronger than those used by the actual product.
Q: Why is RFID better than using barcodes?
A: The most significant difference is that barcodes use line-of-sight technology. That is, a scanner has to “see” the barcode to read it, which means it is necessary to orientate the barcode towards a scanner for it to be read. Barcode systems therefore rely on the user remembering to confirm patients’ sperm, oocytes and embryos match. This can be prone to human error, and if not done correctly, can give a false record.
RFID, by contrast, doesn’t require line-of-sight. Tags can be read as long as they are within range of a reader. In addition, multiple RFID tags can be read at the same time, meaning that several items can be identified together. RI Witness uses this ability to automatically check everything that is brought into the working area.
RFID technology provides a level of security that can eliminate human identification errors. It monitors everything in every work area, every second of every day. It also offers an extremely large number of unique identities (UID). This means that each sample container can has its own UID and that procedures can be tracked in detail. The system knows exactly what has happened to the samples and which containers were used. The communication between tag and reader is very secure.
