Pfizer has introduced a single GS1 standard barcode to all its clinical trial products. This is helping those at Pfizer’s packaging and distribution centres to ensure the right products go to the right sites in the right quantities – and providing a base for greater use of barcode scanning.

To run a clinical trial for a potential new medicine is to confront a challenging and very precise distribution process. Ensuring every healthcare site involved in the trial receives the right products for the right patients – including placebos, or perhaps several different doses of the active ingredient being investigated – is complicated. There is then the further issue of clinicians being certain that the right patient is being administered the right product.

Getting all this correct is crucial to successfully running trials, which are in turn crucial to testing new medicines which could improve treatment options for patients. A clinical trial is a highly controlled environment, and an incorrect shipment or the wrong drug going to the wrong patient could ultimately impact the integrity of outcomes and patient safety.

Pharmaceutical firm Aspen has implemented a GS1 standards-based serialisation system, enabling full regulatory compliance across multiple nations.

Several countries now require serial numbers to be present on pharmaceutical products, and forthis data to be transferred from the manufacturer to the regulator. In 2017, the pharmaceutical company Aspen Australia was awarded a significant contract manufacturing portfolio, with many of the resulting products being exported to nations in which such requirements were in place. The firm therefore needed to implement a solution to ensure compliance.

Acino, a pharmaceutical company, has introduced a track and trace system. Previously manual regulatory reporting and compliance processes have been automated, improving operational efficiency and traceability.

Though headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, pharmaceutical company Acino needed to ensure compliance with track and trace requirements in a range of countries around the world.

Teams at the Jordan Food and Drug Administration and at GS1 Jordan are working together to implement a national traceability programme for medicines. This will increase the ability to easily recall products and so improve patient safety.

The absence of a common healthcare electronic database system which enables information to be shared across supply chains, and of a national traceability programme, means efficiency and safety is sometimes affected in the Jordanian healthcare sector.

Johnson & Johnson Supply Chain has developed an app which enables patients to receive digital information about their medicine, based on GS1 Digital Link.

There is an increasing societal expectation of, and demand for, quick and easy digital access to information. Healthcare is no exception. Yet in many instances the primary source of sharing information with patients about medicines is a paper patient information leaflet which can quickly become out of date and which is often discarded with the medicine packaging.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has implemented an inventory management system which helps track and trace supplies throughout the organisation. Money and staff time have both been saved, and unwarranted clinical variation cut.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust’s (MFT) is one of the largest healthcare providers in the UK, with 10 separate sites. Obtaining full visibility of supplies across the organisation has traditionally been very difficult, leading to inefficiencies.

The Zealand University Hospital, on which construction is almost complete, will have an automated logistical infrastructure in place to ensure the right products are in the right place at the right time.

Zealand University Hospital, on which construction is now almost complete, will be the main specialist hospital in Denmark’s Zealand region. With hundreds of surgeries performed daily, including many specialist treatments, and thousands of outpatient visits by patients each day, hospital supply chains will play an important role in its efficient operation.

If medical devices and pharmaceutical products are not at the right place at the right time, many surgeries will be cancelled, and treatment of patients will be at risk.

The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University has introduced new processes for the delivery, acceptance, warehousing, and billing of medical devices, greatly improving stock management.

Managing medical devices, particularly high value ones, is a core part not only of modern hospital management but of ensuring the quality and safety of services. At China’s The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, in common with all large hospital facilities, it could be a challenging process.

There was a desire to ensure staff were using devices as safely and appropriately as possible; to ensure accurate billing; and to guarantee the traceability of medical devices.

Geisinger Health has rolled out an inventory management system for medical devices, increasing accuracy, efficiency, and productivity.

Geisinger Health, like many large-scale healthcare institutions, used manual processes to store and replenish medical supplies. These processes can be prove to error.

Information on how hospitals are using GS1 standards and barcode scanning is being collated in GS1’s Hospital Implementation Dashboard, helping share knowledge on best practice.

GS1 standards are increasingly being implemented in hospitals across the globe. By scanning barcodes assigned to products, places and people, it becomes possible to precisely track healthcare processes. However, hospitals – and even different departments within those hospitals – often approach the implementation of standards in different ways.

What this can mean is that those involved in these projects inadvertently ‘reinvent the wheel’; failing to take lessons from previous implementations. This then reduces the efficiency with which standards are implemented and the speed at which benefits are realised.