Brussels, Belgium, 23 October 2015 – Over 300 leaders from 43 countries gathered at the 28th GS1 Healthcare conference in Budapest 20-22 October. The theme of the event was Patient Safety and Supply Chain Security.
Healthcare professionals worldwide are striving to provide their patients with the best possible care at all times. However, the effort to achieve this goal faces major challenges: counterfeiting, ineffective and difficult product recalls, medication errors and lack of inventory visibility – all of which are putting patients at risk.
Major – transformational - changes are needed to overcome these challenges. It’s time to reconsider how we work and shift to integrated and patient-centric care, where technology supports doctors and nurses in their everyday work. GS1 standards play a key role and make it possible to exchange unique product identification data across the entire healthcare supply chain. It is these standards that enable end-to end visibility, no matter where or when a patient receives care.
Stefano Soro and Laurent Selles from the European Commission, spoke at the conference about new patient safety requirements currently under discussion. Mr. Soro presented the Delegated Acts on safety features for medicinal products, recently adopted by the European Commission, while Mr. Selles discussed plans for the upcoming European Medical Device Directive.
Other discussions concentrated on the implementation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Unique Device Identification (UDI) rule, the recommendations developed by the APEC Track and Trace Work Group and the request from hospitals to barcode medicines to the single unit.
The humanitarian organisations USAID and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) explained how they plan to establish work streams to ensure end-to-end data visibility using GS1 standards.
Plenary sessions focused on hospital implementation of GS1 standards, with presentations by providers including Derby and Portsmouth NHS Trusts (UK), Tweesteden Hospital, Tilburg and Bernhoven Hospital, Uden (the Netherlands), University Hospital of Schleswig Holstein (Germany) and Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Norte (Portugal). There were also presentations by other key stakeholders including Argentina Ministry of Health and NEHTA (Australia), Eucomed and EMVO. Perspectives from suppliers were provided by Abbott, AmerisourceBergen, Pfizer and Teva.
Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust and Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust both won the “GS1 Healthcare Best Provider Implementation Case Study Award” for their significant advances in healthcare.
Jackie Pomroy, Head of Supply Chain at South of England Procurement Services, said: “We are delighted to win this award. It’s a reflection of the continuing hard work by everyone on this project – but more importantly, it’s a reflection of the increased use of GS1 standards in the healthcare industry, both in the UK and globally. The adoption of GS1 standards by all healthcare providers and their suppliers will create efficiency, quality and safety benefits for all parties.”
The Healthcare Provider Recognition Award was presented to Georges Nicolaos from the Groupe Hospitalier de l’Est Francilien Hospital of Coulommiers, for his exceptional contribution to the implementation of GS1 standards.
“With patient safety at stake, industry and governments worldwide are creating strategies to take better charge of the information that flows throughout the supply chain, globally” said Miguel Lopera, President and CEO of GS1 Global Office.