Savings in the healthcare supply chain
With extreme pricing pressures on healthcare providers, reducing costs while delivering high-quality medical care is an urgent priority.
The McKinsey & Company report, providing the view of 80 thought leaders in the healthcare industry, highlights the need to align on a single global standard to ensure patient safety and explains the urgent need to drive adoption across all supply chain stakeholders.
Reducing costs across the world
Global standards could reduce healthcare costs by $40-100 billion in total:
- $9-58 billion reduction in follow-on cost of medication errors
- $30-42 billion savings from improved inventory management
- $1-2 billion savings from reduced data management costs
(source: McKinsey, 2012)
"The healthcare industry faces a potentially costly patchwork of requirements. Over the long term this patchwork could become unworkable. The adoption of a single set of global standards will cost significantly less than two and far less than three or more".
(McKinsey report, 2012)
Read the facts and figures from the McKinsey Report, 2012
More efficient supply chain
GS1 standards ensure globally unique identification and enable cross-border compatibility of supply chain solutions. This means all stakeholders can efficiently and effectively comply with various local and global requirements, and achieve interoperability and compatibility within their organisation, between organisations and across borders.
The Perfect Order: optimising exchanges from manufacturer to patient bedside
U.S. healthcare provider BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) worked with their supply chain company ROi to implement GS1 standards at each step from manufacturing to patient bedside. The resulting efficiencies included:
- 30% reduction in days payable outstanding
- 73% reduction in ordering discrepancies
- fewer calls to customer service
- fewer stock outs as a result of nurses being able to scan barcodes at the bedside
Patient safety and efficiency in the operating theatre
This case describes the costs and benefits of introducing traceability by means of the GS1 Global Traceability Standard for Healthcare for medical devices used in operating theatres and treatment rooms:
- Data extrapolated to Netherlands hospital inventories of medical devices: ~200 million Euros (100 hospitals); total turnover of medical devices, excluding capital goods, is 2.4 billion Euros.
- Potential savings (conservative): €106 million
