Health supply system a world first
Thurs 9 Sept: Australia’s world-leading National Product Catalogue (NPC) was a feature at the GS1 Global Healthcare Conference in Geneva, in July. The system is one of the first in the world to focus exclusively on the needs of the healthcare industry. It offers a definitive national index of medical equipment and consumables, each with their own unique identification number, and is one of the cornerstones of Australia’s e-health infrastructure being developed by NEHTA.
Supply Chain Program Manager Ken Nobbs, who has championed the NPC concept since its inception four years ago, was a keynote speaker at the conference hosted by international standards organisation GS1. The not-for-profit body has closely partnered with NEHTA in Australia, managing the Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) for more than 138,000 products entered into the catalogue by suppliers such as Johnson and Johnson, Baxter, Pfizer and BBraun.
State and Territory health jurisdictions have backed the NPC concept as a core strategy to improve the speed and accuracy of procuring medical products. In the future, all suppliers will be required to publish their product data on the NPC if they wish to tender for public health sector contracts, with information to be provided in NEHTA compliant format. Currently WA Health and NSW Health are using NEHTA’s eProcurement solution which relies on the NPC to ensure the right products are ordered and delivered. Pilots are also underway in SA and the ACT.
Similar to the Healthcare Identifier system, the NPC plays a crucial role in safeguarding patient safety and quality of care, security, traceability and efficiency by ensuring equipment purchasers can access accurate information about medical equipment, devices, medicines and consumable goods, such as surgical gloves and bandages. A unique GTIN is assigned to each item at all levels of packaging including packets and cartons. GTINs can be represented as a linear barcode or data matrix, or embedded in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and then scanned through the entire supply chain process - from the supplier to the end user, such as hospital and community pharmacies and general practices. It is a concept widely used in the food, beverage and automotive spare parts industries but only now emerging in health.
Automated data management, with unique identification, reduces errors and ensures the right product and quantity is ordered and delivered to the right location at the right time. Data is synchronised from the NPC eliminating the need for purchasers to maintain their own supply information. Using a GTIN ensures all parties speak one language when referring to products - for the first time using a shared identifier - across manufacturers, wholesalers, transporters, distributors and health care providers.
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