CHICAGO, May 21, 2008 – To complete its mission of making the healthcare supply chain safer and more efficient through the adoption of global data standards, the Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Coalition (Standards Coalition) is combining its efforts with GS1 Healthcare US™.
The Standards Coalition, a collaborative of 30 organizations that represent the entire healthcare supply chain, spent more than a year evaluating standards options before recently endorsing GS1’s standards for organization and product identification as well as its Global Data Synchronization Network® standards. Since then, the groups have been collaborating to further develop the GS1 standards to meet the needs of the U.S. health system.
In early 2008, GS1 created GS1 Healthcare US, an industry-led group designed to help the U.S. healthcare industry improve patient safety and increase supply chain efficiency through the adoption and wide-scale implementation of GS1® global standards.
“The Standards Coalition has been working closely with GS1 to develop use cases, roadmaps and other implementation tools. Now that GS1 has created a group dedicated to the needs of the U.S. healthcare market, it makes sense for us to consolidate our work to expedite adoption and eliminate any redundancy in our efforts,” says Joe Dudas, Standards Coalition chairman and director of accounting and supply chain informatics at the Mayo Clinic. “Consolidating efforts also will ensure our activities align with similar efforts in other countries.”
To join forces, The Standards Coalition and GS1 Healthcare US have merged their working groups for organizational identifiers, product identifiers, and data synchronization. In addition, Standards Coalition members will become members of the GS1 Healthcare US workgroups. Dudas and Dennis Orthman, a Standards Coalition executive team member and project director for the Strategic Marketplace Initiative, will help lead the transition and serve on the GS1 Healthcare US leadership team.
“The goals of the Standards Coalition and GS1 Healthcare US are the same: improve patient safety and help the healthcare industry better manage its supply chain through the use of standards,” said Dennis Harrison, president of GS1 Healthcare US. “GS1 is one of the most globally recognized standards organizations by the healthcare industry, and combining the Standards Coalition with our GS1 Healthcare US’ efforts will help speed adoption and implementation of critical standards in the healthcare industry.”
The National Alliance for Health Information Technology (Alliance) established the Standards Coalition in 2006 to tackle inefficiencies in the U.S. healthcare supply chain. In keeping with its focus on encouraging the use of information technology to improve healthcare quality, safety and efficiency, the Alliance recruited leading companies along the supply chain to join the Standards Coalition, with the objective of researching and recommending the best global data standards.
The Alliance will continue to provide support to the Standards Coalition during the transition, which is expected to be completed by August 2008. At that time, GS1 Healthcare US will assume full responsibility for project management and support for the workgroups. Dudas thanked the Alliance for providing the leadership, infrastructure and resources necessary to support the Standards Coalition since its formation.
About the Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Coalition
The Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Coalition is a collaborative of organizations representing the entire healthcare supply chain working to enable the delivery of quality patient care in a cost-effective and efficient manner through the adoption of industry standards. The Standards Coalition utilizes a rigorous and transparent process, facilitated by The National Alliance for Health Information Technology, to make recommendations on specific standards and plans for enabling their use. The Standards Coalition is comprised of healthcare providers, suppliers, group purchasing organizations, technology companies, industry associations, and governmental entities. Members of the Standards Coalition are Abbott, American Hospital Association, Amerinet, Ascension Health, Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM,) BD, Cardinal Health, Coalition for Healthcare eStandards (CHeS,), U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Geisinger Health System Foundation, GHX, Health Industry Distributors Association, Intermountain Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems, Lawson, Mayo Clinic, McKesson, MedAssets, Medline, Mercy Health Systems, Owens & Minor, Novation, Premier, Sentara Healthcare, Strategic Marketplace Initiative, and University Hospitals
About GS1 Healthcare US
GS1 Healthcare US is an industry group that focuses on driving the adoption and implementation of GS1 standards in the healthcare industry to improve patient safety and supply chain efficiency. The Group brings together members from all segments of the healthcare industry including distributors, group purchasing organizations (GPOs), healthcare providers, industry associations, manufacturers, pharmacies, and solution providers to address the issues that most impact healthcare in the United States. GS1 Healthcare US is one of twelve local GS1 user groups around the world that supports the adoption and implementation of global standards developed by GS1. For more information, visit www.gs1us.org/healthcare.
About the National Alliance for Healthcare Information Technology
The National Alliance for Health Information Technology is a diverse partnership of senior executives from all healthcare sectors working to advance the adoption of clinical information technology systems to achieve measurable improvements in patient safety, quality of care and operating performance. The Alliance collaborates with healthcare and government leaders to influence healthcare decision-makers to act effectively in creating an efficient, safe, unified, and inclusive health system. Since its founding in 2002, the Chicago-based Alliance has helped forge consensus and accelerate progress on such important initiatives as developing an industry-endorsed interoperability definition, creating a public directory of health IT standards and authoring Rules of Engagement: A proven path for instilling, and then installing a CPOE approach that works. The Alliance is a co-founder of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) and its CEO chaired the Commission on Systemic Interoperability (CSI). The Alliance recently completed an initiative for the Office of the National Coordinator to define key health IT terms. The Alliance More information about the Alliance is available at www.nahit.org.
CONTACTS:
Standards Coalition
Lois Padovani
630.241.1430
l.padovani@comcast.net
Rob Thibault
GS1 US
609-620-4656
rthibault@gs1us.org
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