Dear Valued Subscriber:

GS1 Canada’s Boards and Working Committees continue to work diligently to respond to the needs of Canada’s healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. Together, with their collaboration and support, we are excited to share progress being made about the ongoing adoption of GS1 standards!

Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) takes leadership position to advance GS1 standards

GS1 global standards are being integrated into Nova Scotia’s health sector through the leadership of Dr. Alex Mitchell, Chief of Surgery, Dartmouth General Hospital/Hants Community Hospital and Physician Lead of the Supply Chain Innovation Program.

This initiative includes the use of GS1 global standards in the RFP scoring process and overall project roll-out of the Supply Chain Innovation Project.

We are also pleased to announce that Dr. Mitchell has also agreed to join GS1 Canada’s Healthcare Advisory Council.

Congratulations to North York General Hospital on their prestigious award

GS1 Canada congratulates North York General Hospital (NYGH) on receiving the HIMSS Nicolas E. Davies Award of Excellence. This award recognizes outstanding achievement of organizations that have utilized health information technology to substantially improve patient outcomes.

NYGH’s winning submission details the implementation of closed-loop medication administration (CLMA), and this process includes the use of GS1 standards. NYGH reported that “CLMA alerts if a medication about to be administered does not match the drug, dose, route, timing and/or the intended patient. From 2010-2015, NYGH has prevented more than 11,000 medication errors using CLMA.”

Healthcare Attribute Navigator tool now available

A new tool has now been launched to make it easier for medical device manufacturers to implement global standards.

The Healthcare Attribute Navigator tool helps manufacturers identify the attributes they need to provide in the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) to satisfy the requirements of individual healthcare providers. The Navigator tool also features a consolidated file to enable manufacturers to see required fields for all their featured trading partners at the same time.

The Navigator tool launches as Canadian healthcare providers have agreed to take an individualized approach to receiving medical device product data from the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN).

Ontario Chamber of Commerce recommends GS1 standards adoption in healthcare

In January 2017, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) released Health Transformation: An Action Plan for Ontario. The action plan identified that GS1 standards are fundamental to ensuring patient safety in the healthcare sector.

The OCC recommends supporting health institutions to adopt GS1 standards to make outcome-based decisions through improved data collection and track performance based on patient and product data.

Publish your ECCnet Registry product catalogue to BCCSS

BC Clinical and Support Services (BCCSS) is adopting and implementing global GS1 Standards, as well as automating data loading to its systems through GS1 Canada’s ECCnet registry. This standardizes and manages master product data for Foodservice, Grocery and Pharmacy.

This data will support business process optimization and improve data quality for BCCSS supply chain activities. For more information about publishing your data, click here.

Recently published NAPRA guidelines on traceability and labelling include GS1 Standards

In January 2017, the National Association on Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) published the Pharmacy Practice Management Systems Supplemental Requirements on Traceability and Bulk Preparation labelling to support NAPRA’s “Model Standards of Practice for Canadian Pharmacists” and “Model Standards for Pharmacy Compounding”, which included requirements for GS1 standards.

A companion to the original 35 requirements, these additional requirements address specific public safety issues regarding traceability and the link to compounding and bulk preparation labelling. These requirements include the capturing and electronic integration of essential information, such as GTIN, lot or batch numbers and expiry dates.