Manufacturers, Distributors and Group Purchasing Organizations

Barcode scanning procedures cut current potential adverse drug events by 50.8%¹.

Use of barcodes on medicines to the single-unit level can help reduce medication error rates by 41.4%¹.

¹ E.G. Poon et al. “Effect of Bar-Code Technology on the Safety of Medication Administration,” New England Journal of Medicine, 362 (2010); 18

Charing Cross Hospital (UK)¹

Patient ID checks were only being done 17% of the time; after barcoded identification wristbands were implemented this increased to 81%

¹ NHS Connecting Health

Gelre Hospitals (The Netherlands)²

Electronic prescription and barcode point-of-care system reduced medication errors by 74%

² GS1 Healthcare conference, 2010

St James’s Hospital (Ireland, 2010)¹

• GS1 standards remove at least €5 million worth of stock
• Product wastage reduced from €90,216 to zero in the year after implementation
• Mock recall can identify the location of 100% of medication within 10 minutes

¹ GS1 Healthcare conference, 2011

Robert Ballanger Hospital (France)¹

Implementing Rectangular DataMatrix with serialised GTIN engraved on instruments and medical devices used in the operating rooms. Appropriate kits and their instruments are registered in the electronic patient record.

• Instruments processed from 2 different hospitals
• Surgery instruments can be repackaged by non-nursing staff
• Non-conformity in surgical kits reduced from 8% to 0%

¹ GS1 Reference Book 2009-2010

Hang Zhou Bin Jiang Hospital (China)¹.

Implementation of a harmonised use of GS1 standards in all medicines and of an Automatic Identification and Data Capture barcode technology application.

• Accurate tracing of drugs from the warehouse to the point-of-dispense
• 40% reduction in time spent by staff for verification, reception and storage of medicines

¹ GS1 Reference Book 2015-2016

Ramsay Health Care (Australia)¹.

Need: Improve the efficiency of supply chain processes while leveraging Australian national e-procurement recommendations.

Solution: Deploy GS1 standards for identifying, capturing and sharing information to support interaction with suppliers.

Benefits: Increased both the speed and the efficiency of its purchasing processes, underpinned the efficient operation of its hospitals and helped ensure the continuous delivery of quality healthcare.

• Procure-to-pay processing costs have been decreased by approximately 95% per document

¹ GS1 Reference Book 2016-2017

EDI, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) and Mercy ROI¹.

• 31.1% improvement in the ROI/Mercy ready-to-pay timing
• 75% improvement in the ROI/Mercy receive-to-match timing
• 30% reduction in days payable outstanding, improving cash flow
• 73% reduction in discrepancies on purchase orders, increasing accuracy and cost savings due to significantly fewer reworks

¹ EDI Implementation Kit 2016

Bernhoven Hospital (Netherlands)¹.

Implemented GS1 standardised unique barcode identification on medical devices used in the operating rooms, such as implants, and internal database with all information about the availability and location of medical devices.

Total value of stock/inventory of medical devices in the hospital’s financial statement €807,000:

• Reduction of stock by 31%
• Reduction in stock value by 23%
• Decrease of interest based on the reduced stock value €2,517
• Reduction of waste by 72%

¹ GS1 Reference Book 2015-2016

Portsmouth Hospital NHS Trust (UK)¹.

In order to resolve the challenge of managing products with 13 different types of barcodes, it implemented the use of GS1 standards (GTINs, batch and lot numbers, expiry date and, where needed, serialisation number) to identify all products at inner and outer packaging level.

• ROI = 8.5:1
• 20% stock reduction
• < 1% waste

¹ Case Studies GS1 UK 2015

Strasbourg University Hospitals (France)¹.

Just In Time supply and facilitate automation of the internal transportation flow. GS1 standards (SSCC) support the flow of information from the warehouse to the point-of-care. The logistics centre’s warehouse consists of two entities: the central store (managing office supplies, hospital room supplies, groceries and non-sterile medical equipment) and the pharmacy (managing medication and sterile and implantable medical equipment).

• 2 logistical flows automated for clean laundry delivered to the wards and dirty laundry leaving from the wards
• 40% more deliveries from the same team and using the same equipment as before

¹ GS1 Reference Book 2011-2012

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Dijon (France)¹.

Using GS1 standards (GLN, GRAI, SSCC, GTIN), created a logistics platform for its warehouse that includes a traceability system.

• 40% increase in productivity
• 30% gain in storage capacity
• 80% reduction of item obsolescence
• 60% reduction of stocks within the hospital stock

¹ GS1 Reference Book 2015-2016

Better inventory management and reduction of product waste: by scanning GS1 barcodes, supply chains will be made simpler, helping to reduce the estimated £150m the NHS wastes each year.

¹ NHS eProcurement Strategy, 2014