1SYNC

Home > Sectors > Healthcare

There has never been more of an immediate need for proven data synchronization in healthcare than there is today.  Hospitals today report that up to 20% of their supply chain costs are due to overhead associated with clearing up confusion caused by non-standardized product data across their operation.  The same product can have different product numbers, different names, and different spellings for the manufacturer making it difficult to order products and apply the correct discounts from their Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) contracts.  Even ordering quantities can be confusing where an item ordered as an "each" could be a dozen items or a box full of items.

Because the healthcare industry in the US is a major part of our economy, representing over 10% of GDP and more than $2T annually, the opportunity for savings is significant.  Even more strategic however is the need for controls within the supply chain to support patient safety initiatives such as product authentication and track and trace.

Congress and the President recently signed into law H.R. 3580, which gives the FDA authority to regulate the healthcare industry by requiring standardized product identification across the industry for non-pharmaceutical medical products.  The FDA already requires this for pharmaceutical products, where the standard U.P.C. can be used with a 3 in the first digit position, followed by the National Drug Code for that product.

Because of 1SYNC’s proven success in the consumer products, hardlines, office supply and grocery industries we have more healthcare suppliers as customers than any other GDSN Data Pool in the world. 

KEY HEALTHCARE DATA SYNC INITIATIVES

US Department of Defense: Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP)
While the industry transitions from manual supply chain processes to e-commerce, access to clean, standardized, consistent and accurate data becomes even more critical. Data synchronization is recognized in other industries as an enabler of increased capability, efficiency and accuracy. To reduce healthcare costs, improve business processes and ultimately improve patient safety, DSCP is collaborating with other federal agencies and with healthcare industry standards organizations, such as the Coalition for Healthcare eStandards (CHeS), to build a pilot product data utility (PDU)-a single, updated source for standardized and synchronized med/surg product information.

DSCP has successfully created and tested a pilot PDU within the DoD, and is now utilizing 1SYNC to advance the effort by testing use of the GDSN as a potential PDU for the entire healthcare industry. An industry PDU has the potential to bring the same level of efficiencies to the healthcare supply chain that data synchronization has brought to many other multi-billion dollar industries.

DSCP has released their Phase 1 results supporting the value and utility of 1SYNC and GS1 standards in a report which can be found here.

CHeS-sponsored PDU Organizing Committee GDSN Pilot Working Group
CHeS has created a working group comprised of industry representatives to keep up-to-date on the latest industry efforts on data synchronization. The CHeS-sponsored PDU Organizing Committee GDSN Pilot Working Group meets weekly to share and communicate learnings from the current PDU pilot launched by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Related Links:
GLN Registry for Healthcare website
CHeS
AHRMM
NAHIT
GS1 Healthcare
GS1 Healthcare US Industry Group