10.10.16
Changing healthcare with GS1 standards
Source: NHE Sep/Oct 16
It’s been over two years since the Department of Health (DH) mandated the use of GS1 standards by all acute trusts in England and their suppliers. Glen Hodgson, head of healthcare at GS1 UK, looks at the progress made since then, and highlights some of the many success stories – not just here in England but across the world.
Since the DH mandate in 2014, we’ve seen all 154 acute trusts become GS1 members and the announcement of a £12m investment in the Scan4Safety programme – six demonstrator sites tasked with the job of highlighting the successes, and challenges, of GS1 adoption. The announcements and the investment from the DH has shown its ongoing commitment to the programme – but we’ve already seen the benefits in trusts across the country.
Derby leads the way
One of the biggest success stories to date can be found at Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS FT, who have made big strides in implementing GS1 standards in general surgery, imaging and cath labs – and they’re already reaping the rewards. Since April 2014, they’ve saved at least £25,000 per month just in the consumables in these areas – that’s an overall saving of £700,000 so far.
Their goal was to electronically capture all equipment usage and implant information within theatre. In making sure that all products, staff, patients, surgical instruments and medical equipment are identified and scanned in theatre at the time of the surgical procedure, they’re gaining a complete and accurate record of every operation. This isn’t just saving them money, it’s making operations safer – when product recalls now take place, the trust can easily identify all products that are held within the trust and prevent their use. They can also identify all patients that may have been affected by the products, even patients with implants who are now at home. It’s saving them time, money and, most important of all, it’s improving patient safety.
All six demonstrator sites are working towards GS1 compliance and are doing vital work to show how it’s done.
- Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has already mapped over 25,000 GS1 Global Location Numbers (GLNs) to each room and area within the trust – this will become part of a national database to map locations across trusts in England
- Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust is also having success with GLNs, as a cost-effective and consistent way of managing their locations. The aim is for the trust’s property management system to route information to the other systems with no manual involvement, saving much needed time and money
A global change
By adopting GS1 standards, acute trusts in England are becoming part of an increasingly large global community. In the US, for example, we’re seeing the widespread adoption of GS1 standards in the wake of legislation from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). If you supply medical devices to the US, you need to be complying with their Unique Device Identification (UDI) regulations. Again, this is where GS1 standards come in – GS1 has been accredited by the FDA as an issuing agency for UDIs and our standards conform to all their UDI requirements.
With similar legislation on its way in the EU, European countries are also getting on board. In southern Denmark, for example, they saw it as an opportunity to improve their manual process of procuring and managing medical devices.
The region has now implemented a digital inventory management system using existing barcodes on the products. The system automatically registers GS1 Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) – the numbers you see beneath the barcodes – and lot numbers and expiry dates. This provides them with an overview of products in stock, the order in which products need to be used and automatic reordering of products from manufacturers.
Not only does this automate the process, but it also gives doctors the reassurance that the products required for each day’s surgeries are in stock, reducing the risk of postponing surgical procedures and enhancing patient safety.
As trusts and hospitals around the world realise the benefits of GS1 standards, we’re also seeing suppliers respond. For instance, Stryker, one of the world’s leading medical technology companies, needed to update its product labelling to comply with US, UK and EU regulations and used it as an opportunity to standardise the product identifiers and barcodes of all 72,000+ of its products. This isn’t an easy task, so Stryker developed a phased approach to introduce GS1 standards globally, making the transition more manageable.
The first GS1 labelled products started shipping in September 2014 and every single product will be compliant to GS1 standards within two years from now. This will reduce errors caused by the incorrect identification of products, simplify the integration of device data into computer data systems and generally make their supply chain more efficient.
We’re only just beginning
We’ve seen some great successes already but the programme is really only just getting started. When the NHS Five Year Forward View, published in 2014, identified a funding gap of £30bn over the next five years, it made clear that trusts need to be saving all the money they can in that time. This isn’t just a quick fix but a complete culture change that needs to happen in all trusts in England, and GS1 standards are an example of that.
Through GS1 standards, healthcare providers and suppliers across the world are making their supply chains more efficient, their operations safer and they’re giving their staff back time to care. They’re working towards complete visibility of who did what, why and where, and complete traceability of every instrument, device, medication or implant used.
When we talk about helping the NHS save thousands of lives and millions of pounds, we mean it.
For more information
W: www.gs1uk.org/healthcare
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