Pfizer Australia joins the NEHTA National Product Catalogue
7 October 2009. Australia’s number one consumer healthcare company and a leading provider of prescription medicines, Pfizer Australia, has committed to a national approach to e-health supply chain reform by including approximately 1000 products in NEHTA’s National Product Catalogue (NPC).
Australia’s number one consumer healthcare company and a leading provider of prescription medicines, Pfizer Australia, has committed to a national approach to e-health supply chain reform by including approximately 1000 products in NEHTA’s National Product Catalogue (NPC).
In line with NEHTA’s goal to drive the uptake of e-health systems nationally, the inclusion of an organisation like Pfizer Australia committing to being part of a primary source of data is a positive step.
Australia is one of the first countries in the world to develop a single, national product catalogue and it provides significant benefits for the Australian health sector. NEHTA’s NPC uniquely identifies healthcare products, including medicines and medical devices and equipment, and records important supply chain and clinical information about those products such as the components of products and pack sizes. Suppliers populate one catalogue with standard data and globally unique identifiers. This product data, through the NPC, is then made available to procurement areas from public health departments and private organisations who have signed up to the NPC. The NPC reduces the duplication of effort and data errors which is particularly important in the healthcare supply chain where getting the right products at the right place and time can be critical to ensuring quality patient treatment.
It is NEHTA’s objective that the NPC will be the primary source of data for all health-related purchasing in Australia which will remove the need for around 750 public and 280 private hospitals (among other healthcare purchasers) to maintain their own product data.
To date, more than 225 healthcare suppliers have now loaded products to the NPC.
For more information on the Supply Chain work program go to http://www.nehta.gov.au/connecting-australia/e-health-procurement