On November 8 we will host a GS1-session titled “Care outcomes positively influenced by innovating procurement”. This session is to share examples from several countries of enhanced healthcare results by the introduction of global standards, starting at procurement in healthcare organisations.

In healthcare organisations the role of procurement has changed to an important strategic role. Implementation cases - highlighted in this session - demonstrate how implementing GS1 standards in procurement processes supports rationalising assortments and reduces supply chain costs. Clinical decision making concerning specific materials and devices is supported and it allows nurses to spend more time on actual patient care instead of also being responsible for stock keeping. GS1 is the leading (supply chain) standards organisation in the world, focusing on developing global standards to improve efficient ‘identification, capturing and sharing’ of data on products, locations, transactions. This leads to full traceability. All over the world in many markets Global Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) standards are used, as these facilitate the reduction of administrative needs, of stock and of waste. Scanning and registering at the ‘source’ facilitates the availability of data in multiple systems. Regulation(s) drive the identification of medical products with global standards to support full traceability and fight counterfeit. The AIDC standards prove very applicable in healthcare and are increasingly used in the healthcare provider environment.

As procurement serves an entire healthcare organisation, it is a perfect process to start using GS1 standards, bringing innovations in the procurement process, and an opportunity for standardisation and innovations deeper in the healthcare organisation. This reduces manual registration procedures and the risk of errors (like wrong patient, wrong product), facilitates automated point-of-care-check, recall-procedures, supports full (global) product traceability and facilitates clinical decision-making, internal & external benchmarking. Using GS1 standards in healthcare increases innovation power and patient safety.

 In this session we will have four presenters:

• Els van der Wilden, chair and global overview, Director Healthcare Providers, GS1 Global Office Belgium
• Dr. Jean-Michel Descoutures, France. Title of the presentation: Standardized information in electronic catalogues to improve the procurement process and enhance patient safety
• Hamed Almahrizi, Oman: Title of the presentation: Procurement supports standardisation of care, enhancing quality of care
• Alex van der Putten, Title of the presentation: Less bricks, more bites, different behaviour - Head of Procurement & Supply Chain, Rabmoudumc, Netherlands