GS1 - The global language of business

Healthcare

The use of automatic data capture, by way of GS1's globally standardised bar code technology, is helping the healthcare industry achieve vital improvements in patient safety and boosting the quality of patient care.

Over 45 countries are already using GS1's open, global standards for the coding of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Automatic data capture is proving to be one of the most cost-effective ways of tracking and tracing both patients and pharmaceutical products and a number of hospitals and healthcare providers are also finding that it is driving significant cost reductions throughout the healthcare supply chain.

What's more, the use of automatic data capture in healthcare has been underscored by a 2003 US Food & Drug Administration proposal to require GS1 bar codes on virtually all medications and blood products, in a drastic bid to improve patient safety.

The Food & Drug Administration predicts annual savings of nearly $US4 billion just from preventing adverse events due to medication errors. It says that bar code technology can prevent many such errors including administering the wrong drug, administering a drug to a patient known to be allergic, giving a drug at the wrong dose or giving the drug at the wrong time.

The FDA proposal gives real impetus to the use of bar coding in the healthcare supply chain. As most pharmaceutical companies operate internationally, we can all benefit from the US initiative as well as vital progress being made in other countries to adopt global, open business standards.

 

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