Healthcare

The situation in healthcare today

GS1 is the global leading standards organization in the healthcare industry. In 56 countries worldwide GS1 standards have been chosen to identify uniquely pharmaceutical products. Major regulatory bodies including the US, Japan and the UK have endorsed them.

GS1 standards improve patient safety and reduce costs in the healthcare supply chain. Automatic product identification on all product levels and full traceability ensure a safe and secure supply chain by providing greater visibility, accuracy and velocity for the benefits of all parties involved.

Preventing medical errors and combating counterfeiting are top-of-mind concerns facing the healthcare sector – GS1 standards help to solve these issues.

The possibility of full traceability and visibility throughout the supply chain has a very high value to everybody involved. The GS1 System can help provide more effective systems for the identification and distribution of medical and surgical products and services of all kinds resulting in the accurate prescribing, dispensing and administration of medicines to patients.

GS1 Patient Safety

GS1 is working together with the healthcare industry to develop patient safety solutions based on the GS1 System of standards.

Quick Links

GS1 HUG™ website www.gs1.org/hug

The global Healthcare User Group (GS1 HUG™)

Leading global companies from the pharmaceutical and medical device industry have formed a global GS1 Healthcare User Group (GS1 HUG™). It is the first time that the healthcare industry is aligning around a global solution to enhance automatic product identification for the benefit of patients worldwide.

The work of the HUG will improve the performance of the healthcare supply chain for drugs and medical devices through the collaborative development and endorsement of recommended voluntary GS1 standards and best practices.

The mission of the GS1 HUG™ is to lead the healthcare industry to the effective utilization and development of global standards with the primary focus on automatic identification to improve patient safety.

The vision of the GS1 HUG™ is to become the single source for regulatory agencies and trade organizations (manufacturer, wholesaler, hospital and pharmacy) to seek input and direction for global standards in the healthcare industry.

The HUG is concentrating particularly on ensuring that appropriate data structures are selected in order to meet common business needs, and to help ensure data standardisation in healthcare. If standardisation is applied globally, systems to improve patient safety will be developed and implemented quicker than if individual countries were to pursue separate solutions.

While the main focus is in the moment on a global solution for automatic product identification to ensure the safety of patients worldwide the GS1 HUG™ will look into other aspects of the healthcare supply chain in the future like data synchronisation, EDI messages and other important topics.

The four focus areas for the HUG are the following:

1.       Prevention of Medical Errors

·          Encoding of the unit dose or unit of use package to enable automated verification to ensure right dose, for the right patient at the right time

·          Encoding of the unit of use package to enable automated verification to ensure the right device for the right patient.

2.       Product Authentication

·          ensuring that the packaging and associated labeling are genuine by utilizing a GS1 data structure, enabling authentication of individual packages, cases or pallets.

3.       Tracking and Tracing

·          Utilizing a GS1 data structure, work with supply chain trading partners to enable an electronic pedigree for individual packages such that in the event of a counterfeiting incident, tracing of the suspect product can occur.

4.       Increase Total Supply Chain Efficiency

·          Through greater visibility, accuracy and velocity

For more information please see the GS1 HUG™ website www.gs1.org/hug.