RI Witness Laboratory Management

Make the RI Witness electronic witnessing system your cornerstone solution for sample safety, efficient workflow management, and auditing tool for quality control.

Read on to find out more, and discover how clinics are currently using the system to help optimize their laboratory practices. RI Witness goes beyond electronic witnessing. It’s about optimizing your practices.

Dynamic laboratory management

Our Analytics data allow you to make informed decisions about best practice. By identifying where bottlenecks occur, you can determine staff training requirements, any equipment needs or laboratory reconfiguration and upgrades. You can use the reporting features to drill down into detail or stand back for a broader overview of your lab. For multi-site clinics, or clinics with multiple laboratories, having this information helps you standardize your protocols, and supports continual professional training as your clinic expands. Once your core Witness Point Diagram is established, keep it aligned with your lab SOP updates, using our straightforward user interface.

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Key Product Information

Brochures

Specifications

Order Codes

Remove administration redundancy

Stay on top of your regulatory requirements by making audits simple. Real-time patient cycle data are entered directly into patient records using touchscreens installed at every workstation. Record which products are used for each cycle type for easy organization of your consumables batch data. Records can then be sorted, filtered, and cross-referenced with patient IDs.

Keep everyone informed

The RI Witness Cycle Overview Display in the laboratory shows your team’s progress at a glance – with each cycle’s current status and the last procedure undertaken updated in real time. The screen helps your embryologists to control and prioritize their own workflow. When everyone is literally on the same (screen) page, your team will stay on track.

The cost of manual witnessing

RI Witness makes sound commercial sense. In the context of ART, the time spent by one embryologist leaving their cycle to complete the witnessing requirement for another cycle is a loss. RI Witness gives back much of that time cost by removing this witnessing step.4,11

Thanks to implementing RI Witness, Nurture Fertility managed to simplify their workflow, relieving staff from supporting colleagues on numerous witnessing steps on a daily basis. This has resulted in an increased efficiency, taking the clinic from 129 to 153 cycles per full time employee, within 2 years after implementing RI Witness.

Case Study:
Nurture Fertility, UK

Increased Productivity Following the Introduction of RI Witness

Active Audits

In many countries, it is a regulatory requirement to track and document the consumables including batch number, used throughout every single ART cycle, a requirement which clinics are able to handle efficiently using the Traceability functionality in RI Witness. The Anatolia clinic in Ankara, Turkey, documents the usage of 40 different types of consumables, linking them to every cycle by simply scanning consumable batches at receipt, when opened and when closed. This frees up hours of manpower on a monthly basis, avoids transcription errors plus facilitates accurate auditing.

Checks and measures, costs and benefits

On the other side of the balance sheet, having RI Witness can help you attract more patients and expert staff. Experienced staff are attracted to clinics that continually invest in technology. Potential patients aware of the possibility of a mismatch are reassured when they see the clinic is safeguarded by RI Witness and read our informative leaflet. We can also provide promotional materials you can customize to make your clinic stand out.

Stress reduction in these stressful times

Depression and anxiety disorders cost the global economy US$1 trillion each year in lost productivity.₄ Reducing work–related risk factors is the WHO’s key recommendation for protecting your staff’s mental wellbeing. Because they do not have to remember to stop and check for mismatches, RI Witness reduces your staff’s worries about making mistakes. Users such as Laura Rienzi of Genera Clinic, Rome reported “a reduction of staff workload and distractions, thus increasing operator satisfaction.”3 Peace of mind for your staff benefits them, your lab’s efficiency and your bottom line.

Recent webinars about KPIs and managing quality in the IVF laboratory

Evaluation of IVF laboratory outcomes with key performance indicators

Author: Martine Nijs, PhD
Global Training Manager, CooperSurgical

Managing Quality in the 
ART Laboratory

Author: David Morroll, PhD
Director of Clinical Support, CooperSurgical

RI Witness Supporting IVF Quality Management

INTERVIEW: Victoria Ryder MSc, Fertility Laboratory Manager at Complete Fertility

Safety in the face of social distancing

One person, one workstation
By removing the need for manual double-checking, RI Witness will help you implement social distancing. No-one needs to be called over to another station. Social distancing protects your staff and RI Witness protects your compliance. If you are stretching lab time through shift-working, that time is used efficiently – the opportunity cost is minimized.

‘RI Witness allows reduced, or distanced staff to work independently whilst ensuring all witnessing requirements are met. Reduced embryologists required for witnessing means that smaller teams can work together. This allows theatre and procedure lists to be prolonged, shifts to be staggered and workload can be increased.

The RI Witness RFID technology within the workstation means login can be contactless and minimal touching of surfaces or hardware is required. Hardware is easily cleanable between uses, assisting in the protection of staff. Witnessing and traceability reports are available to view at remote work areas meaning staff are safe and patients can be reassured regarding the full witnessing of procedures ‘

Louise Best, Group Embryology Support and Improvement Lead
CARE Fertility, UK

Using RI Witness in the times of COVID-19

Featuring an introduction by Dr Stephen Troup, Consultant Reproductive Scientist at Reproductive Science Consultancy Ltd, Dr Robbie Kerr, Laboratory Director at Belfast Fertility presents this insightful session about the benefits of using of RI Witness in his clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Product Specifications

Work Areas One work area required for each critical working location. Microsoft Windows based PC or Tablet needed for each work area. Readers available heated or unheated. RFID reader frequency: 13.56MHz
Barcode Compatibility (Traceability) Compatible with GS1 barcodes (GS1-128)
Barcode Scanner (Traceability) Compatible with USB (Keyboard wedge) fixed and hand held scanners
Camera Compatibility (Imaging) Research Instruments’ DC1 & DC2, Analogue cameras
RI Witness™ Manager (Client Software) PC System Requirements Operating Systems: Windows 11, Windows 10
Server / Network Requirements Microsoft SQL Server required (not supplied). Network Point required for each work area

Order Codes

The Order Codes for RI Witness™ will depend on your particular configuration.

 Please contact a distributor in your region

Brochures

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/

12. CooperSurgical. (2020). Nurture Fertility Report Increased Productivity Following the Introduction of RI Witness™. 

RI Witness™ Publications

Measuring human error in the IVF laboratory using an electronic witnessing system

Implementing an electronic witnessing system into a busy IVF clinic – one clinic’s experience.

Electronic Witness System makes patients less concerned about biological sample mix-up errors and comfortable with IVF clinical practice

Infallible processes in reproduction: Efficiency of preventative RFID systems and quality controls in an ART centre.

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.