Automation of tracking used stent grafts during surgical procedures

About client

HAMMERmed Medical Polska is one of the market leaders in the distribution of medical devices in Poland. The company actively participates in public procurement procedures, offering a broad portfolio of products to medical facilities across the country.

A leading distributor of medical products and modern treatment methods on the Polish market.

About project

During medical procedures, a representative of HAMMERmed is responsible for providing physicians with the appropriate stent grafts. Each used product must be clearly identified and accurately settled.

Previously, the process of recording used stent grafts was based on manual analysis of procedural documentation and manual reading of product labels. With the growing number of procedures, this process became time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale.

The client needed a solution that would:

• automate the identification of used stent grafts,
• streamline the settlement process,
• ensure high quality and consistency of sales data.

3Soft designed and implemented a solution enabling automated analysis of documentation in PDF format.

The system recognizes stent graft labels, reads barcodes, and processes handwritten notes associated with them, allowing for unambiguous identification of products used during procedures.

The solution was designed to handle documents of varying quality while minimizing the need for manual work on the client’s side.

The full scope of work for HAMMERmed covered several stages, enabling delivery of a solution aligned with the client’s expectations.

Stage I – Data and documentation analysis

• Analysis of procedural documents provided by the client,
• Identification of label types, barcodes, and handwritten notes,
• Preparation of a reference dataset for solution validation.

Stage II – Development of the recognition mechanism

• Automatic identification of labels in PDF documents,
• Barcode reading with OCR support in challenging cases,
• Assignment of handwritten notes to the correct products,
• Verification of code compliance with the client’s product database, including identification of unmatched codes.

Stage III – Process automation

• Full automation of document processing,
• Elimination of manual recording by the client’s team,
• Preparation of data ready for further settlement and reporting.

Stage IV – Validation and recommendations

• Effectiveness testing using real data,
• Analysis of the impact of document quality on recognition accuracy,
• Development of recommendations to improve input data quality.

Even during the implementation and further development phase, the solution demonstrated high effectiveness.

Based on the analysis of 70 documents and over 1,500 labels:

• ~98% accuracy in label identification,
• ~92% accuracy in barcode reading,
• 70% of documents achieved barcode reading accuracy of ≥ 90%.

The implementation of a solution with the above level of efficiency enabled the client to:

• Automate the recording of used stent grafts,
• Reduce the risk of errors resulting from manual document processing,
• Shorten the time required to settle procedures,
• Obtain consistent and well-structured sales data,
• Prepare the process for further scalability as the number of procedures increases.