The World Health Innovation Network (WIN) provides the first research of its kind by developing empirical case studies that quantify the operational and financial benefits of highly automated and integrated supply chain infrastructure in health systems, enabled by global standards adoption.

Examining Alberta Health Services (AHS) in Canada, the National Health Service (NHS) in England, and Mercy in the US, the research uncovers their implementation strategies, outlines the emerging impact and identifies returns-on-investment as high as 7:1 from adopting supply chain processes to strengthen health system performance. Although, the case studies profile supply chain implementations in three different countries (characterised by unique leadership approaches, implementation strategies and system governance structures), all three reported significant outcomes.

Like many hospitals in Chinese Taipei, St. Joseph’s Hospital once used paper records, manual processes and no specific methodology to manage its medical devices and materials.

St. Joseph’s Hospital launched a Unique Device Identification (UDI) project that automated its business and clinical processes by implementing GS1 standards to uniquely identify all medical devices and materials. With this foundation, the hospital was able to establish a traceability system for implanted medical devices and collect real-time data about their use and associated inventory levels.

Serum Institute of India needed a to comply with the UNICEF mandate for seamless delivery of vaccine to various parts of the world.

SII adopted GS1 standards to create a traceability system for all COVID vaccines, meant for exports.

They found that they had little visibility into what item was used and with what patient.

Also, the tracking of stock levels and expiry dates was difficult. This posed a significant risk to patient safety. In the two theatres where Scan4Safety had been initially implemented, the Clinical Nursing Manager was spending more than a day per week on reordering and managing stock. This was taking valuable clinical time away from patient care.

While this reflects processes in many other hospitals in Ireland, the TUH team looked to address these issues by implementing barcode scanning in theatres, with the aim of improving patient safety and giving time back to patient care. This is made possible by making it easier for nursing staff to re-order products as they have greater visibility on stock levels and expiry dates. With the successful roll out of Scan4Safety across many sites in the UK, and in St. James’s Hospital, Dublin, the team at TUH had many sites to reference for best practices.

Added to this, with the introduction of Unique Device Identification (UDI) regulations across the world, most medical devices now have unique device identifiers— the Global Trade Item Number® (GTIN®), lot number, expiry date and sometimes serial number—enabling a simple scan at the point of care.

The global biopharmaceutical company wanted to improve the efficiency of its operational processes related to investigational products that, in turn, would deliver numerous benefits for its healthcare providers and patients.

Sanofi worked with its supply chain stakeholders to transition from the use of multiple proprietary barcodes to global GS1 standards. Today, investigational products are uniquely identified with GS1 Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) encoded in GS1 DataMatrix barcodes. This standardised approach helps Sanofi’s hospitals and trial sites better manage clinical trial activities so that the right investigational product and/or kit goes to the right patient.

There were neither standardised spreadsheets, records nor labels.

Rothex now has a traceability system that leverages GS1 standards to uniquely identify the eggs by lot/farm and pallet. Each pallet of multiple lots of eggs is identified with a GS1 Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) that in encoded with the lot identifiers in a GS1-128 barcode. By scanning the barcode, the company can easily identify the different lots or farms from which they came.

Following a trust-wide review of supply chain processes, practices and systems, Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust realised that there were areas where they could be operating with greater efficiency.

The success of the programme was central to the procurement of an effective inventory management system that would enable the automation of inventory management processes. After reviewing their options, they decided to implement Ingenica Solutions’ 360 – the first GS1-certified inventory management solution in the NHS.

Future Intelligence developed an Internet of Things (IoT) traceability solution, QUHOMAtrace. GS1 EPC-enabled standards provide the needed identification for the farm plots, each crop’s batch/lots and the sensors associated with the farm plots and crops.

While there are many traceability solutions to document and share, an agri-food product’s route-to-market spans across organisational boundaries and provides a complete custody of events that start with the crop’s planting date.

Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) significantly challenged PHOENIX group as all its business areas were affected by the directive.

In particular, the company’s FMD requirements for wholesale and 3PL activities were challenging to fulfil. They needed a solution which allowed capture of the current status of those medicines that a wholesaler has to scan according to FMD.

Movilitas.Cloud proved to be the right solution. It is not only connected to the European Medicines Verification System (EMVS) and to all 32 National Medicine Verification Systems (NMVSs) in Europe, but also acts as a connection between PHOENIX’s systems and the systems of partners.

The Netcare Group (Netcare) in South Africa operates the largest private acute care hospital, primary healthcare, emergency medical services, mental health and renal care networks in the country.

With a continuous focus on providing the best and safest health and care to each patient, Netcare wanted to transform its paper-based business and clinical processes to ones that are automated, digital and highly efficient.

Netcare is now scanning GS1 barcodes on products — pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices — as they are received in the hospital’s pharmacy and theatre storage rooms, and as they are used throughout wards and operating theatres. Netcare, collaborating closely with GS1 South Africa, engaged with suppliers to start using GS1 standards on medical devices. For master data management, Netcare and its suppliers use the Global Data Synchronisation Network™ (GDSN®) to exchange accurate and complete product information.