01.10.15
Poor supply chain management is putting patients at risk – but not for much longer
Source: NHE Sep/Oct 15
Glen Hodgson, head of healthcare at GS1 UK, discusses the consequences for patient safety when resources are put under excessive pressure.
Our health service is under an unprecedented level of pressure to deliver more for less – treating more patients and delivering a higher standard of care, with fewer resources. There is increasing evidence of the effects that this pressure can have, not only on caregivers through clinical mistakes, but due to inabilities to track and trace products through the supply chain too.
We’re all familiar with the stories we hear about mis-medication and wrong-site surgery – like when a hospital implanted the wrong-sized ball joint for the socket during hip surgery, causing the patient unnecessary pain for two years.
There’s also the PIP breast implants scandal, whereby circa 300,000 patients (47,000 in the UK) received dangerous implants. The implants in question are made-up of cheap industrial silicone and are far more likely to rupture than other brands – making the need to recall and replace them of great importance. However, identifying which patients received the ‘scandalous’ implants is not as simple as – to take an example from the retail world – checking the batch number on a recalled jar of baby food and returning it to the store. But, why is that?
Eradicating avoidable patient safety incidents
Retailers are able to remove affected products from shelves in a matter of hours and stock held throughout the entire supply chain is quarantined. This is a well-rehearsed industry process that reassures consumers. Yet, isn’t it crazy that in healthcare, staff spend entire weekends rooting through store rooms looking for recalled devices and medication.
Imagine being able to eradicate those avoidable patient safety incidents and having robust – and automated – processes in place to identify products.
Such processes would mean surgical packs and products are automatically validated at the point-of-use. This could then alert the clinician that, for example, a ball joint is not appropriate for the socket that’s been selected – saving the patient years of unnecessary pain, not to mention the cost to the trust of a second surgery and potential legal action.
In the example of breast implants, this would mean that each implant could be tracked from the manufacturer through the supply chain all the way to the patient – where it would be updated onto the patient record. Every implant could then be located and recalled effectively, knowing which store room it’s in or which patient received it. This would not only increase patient safety, but save time spent by clinicians manually searching for recalled items and release more time to care.
New regulations will combat supply chain failures
There are regulations coming in healthcare which all providers and suppliers must comply with. They will combat some of these supply chain failures and demand the traceability of products throughout the healthcare supply chain – specifically the Unique Device Identification regulations and the Falsified Medicines Directive.
The Department of Health has also mandated the use of GS1 standards throughout the NHS in England, meaning that every supplier and every NHS trust must adopt GS1 barcoding standards.
Improved patient safety though GS1 standards
GS1 standards offer three main benefits. They improve patient safety, deliver stronger regulatory compliance and lead to operational efficiencies.
Lord Carter’s independent review into productivity in the NHS states: “The introduction of GS1 standards will allow every NHS hospital in England to save on average up to £3m each year while improving patient care.”
Uniquely identifying every person, product and place gives NHS trusts complete traceability and allows this information to be captured and shared automatically, whether it’s between departments and care professionals, or between hospitals and their suppliers – in other words, true interoperability is achieved between people and systems.
GS1 unique identification numbers can be applied to patients, medicines, surgical instruments and patient records and provide a common foundation that, in turn, improve confidence in care delivery. Quite simply, they help ensure that a patient receives the right medicine and the right device, when and where they need it.
A milestone for traceability in healthcare
In what is believed to be the first case ever, the MHRA recently informed the health services about a medical product recall for metal-on-metal hip replacements using GS1 unique identification numbers (more about the MHRA’s use of UDIs on p73). This is a significant milestone and sets a great example for how GS1 standards can support healthcare in tracking safety recalls efficiently throughout the supply chain, leading to better patient outcomes.
A number of NHS trusts in England are making some great progress in this area. Trusts have implemented GS1 standards in their inventory management processes, which has helped them to accurately track medicines and procedures to each patient with provable benefits – and in turn helped them treat and understand individual cases better.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
W: www.gs1uk.org/healthcare
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