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Supply Chain

An electronically interconnected health environment provides an opportunity for the public health sector to make significant efficiency gains and cost savings, particularly in the area of procurement. To this end, NEHTA has established a National Product Catalogue (NPC) to provide a central source of data for the purchase of healthcare products within health departments in each State and Territory.

The NPC uniquely identifies each healthcare product (for example medicines and medical devices) and records information such as active ingredients and pack size - reducing significantly the number of products incorrectly ordered because of identification errors, which potentially delays patient treatment. Other benefits of the NPC include:

• Removing the need for each purchasing office and supplier to use inefficient paper-based purchasing forms and product specification sheets - information can be automatically updated for all current and potential customers, with a simple upload.
• Suppliers can reduce costs associated with processing invoice reconciliations, credit claims, returns and refused deliveries, because of the reduced rate of ordering errors.
• Swift product recalls and precise product tracking.
• Decreasing the risk of a hospital running out of stock, while reducing the amount of hospitals' working capital tied up in ‘safety' stocks.
• Significantly reducing the time and costs associated with introducing new products onto the market, while improving product visibility across Australia’s largest healthcare buyers.
• Ensuring pricing information is secure and only available to nominated trading partners.
• Providing clean, accurate product data to use e-health systems (medicines prescribing and dispensing systems).

Contact
Ken Nobbs, Program  Manager, Medical Products - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it