Traceability of Haemophilia Products

NCHCD (National Centre for Hereditary Coagulant Diseases) Initiative Promises Safer Treatment for Haemophiliacs
Dublin : April 23rd, 2004

The launch of an innovative project at St James’s Hospital today by Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin TD, heralds the dawn of a new way of ensuring improved clinical management for haemophiliacs. The project promises safer treatments for sufferers of haemophilia not only in Ireland but potentially for all European Member States and, possibly, even globally.The St. James’s Hospital project will provide Irish patients with a clear and efficient solution for the safe delivery of haemophilia care. This new IT solution provides automatic, electronic monitoring of haemophilia treatment in the hospital and in the home. It was developed by the National Centre for Hereditary Coagulation Diseases (NCHCD) in collaboration with GS1 Ireland, and is based on the Global Standards of the GS1 System from GS1, the global supply chain standards organisation.
Dr. Barry White, Director of NCHCD at St. James’s commented “This project will provide real time identification of the location of all Clotting Factor Concentrates (CFCs) used in the treatment of haemophilia to facilitate rapid, accurate and validated product recall. It is our goal to ensure the complete electronic tracking of each vial of factor concentrate imported into the Republic of Ireland - from point of entry to the end user. This will be enabled by the unique numbering and bar coding of each vial to enable automatic data collection and processing. We are all very excited – the solution promises better clinical management and certainly safer patient care.
Dr White’s views were reflected in Minister for Health Mr Michael Martin’s comments “This new initiative, we believe a world first, will ensure the provision of a system to make certain that the correct product is prescribed and administered to the patient. Its introduction clearly focuses on accountability, safety and the ultimately the traceability of every product and patient involved in the treatment process ensuring the safe delivery of haemophilia care.”
The system once implemented will be under review internally by the National Centre for Hereditary Coagulation disorders, GS1 Ireland and the Irish Haemophilia Society. Importantly, there will also be an external review provided by the Global Consultation Group operating under the leadership of the World Haemophilia Organisation (WFH) and including representatives from regulatory authorities (such as FDA, EMEA), clinicians, consumers (WFH, IPOPI), governmental agencies (DG SANCO, HHS), industry (PPTA) and the not-for-profit manufacturing sector (EPFA).
Jim Bracken, Chief Executive of GS1 Ireland and Project Director of EAN’s European Healthcare Initiative enthused: “GS1 Ireland are delighted to be involved in the development of such a critical system for the treatment of patients with haemophilia. I believe that the system has the potential to become the basis of a much broader geographically based solution. Through the work of the Global Consultation Group and our own European Healthcare Initiative, we hope to roll-out the solution across other European Member States and perhaps even globally.”Jim continued “GS1 Ireland has also prepared a draft solution for Cancer Treatment Services that is designed to introduce the principle of tracking and tracing of the treatment of cancer patients. These projects are all part of GS1 Ireland’s healthcare initiative and reflect our commitment to assisting the Healthcare Sector to adopt electronic systems based on our global standards - to improve patient safety as well as supply chain efficiency”.

GS1 Ireland was founded as a neutral, not for profit association in 1981 by the leading grocery suppliers and retailers of the day. It is a user driven organisation and is governed by member representatives from trade and industry who use the EAN.UCC System. GS1 Ireland is a member of GS1 and is responsible for promoting the development and use of bar coding, scanning and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) standards in the Republic of Ireland. The Association is also responsible for managing and allocating the portion of the global number bank allocated to Ireland. In this capacity GS1 Ireland is responsible for allocating Company Prefix Numbers and Location Codes to companies in Ireland who wish to use EAN & UPC bar codes and/or the EANCOM standards for EDI. GS1 is also establishing the Global Standards for the use of RFID technology via its newly established EPCglobal organization.

St. James’s Hospital is the largest acute hospital in the Republic of Ireland with approximately 3,500 staff and 780 beds. There is a strong academic commitment as represented by the Trinity Health Sciences Centre, incorporating the Institute of Molecular Medicine, which opened on campus in 1994. St. James's provides a comprehensive range of diagnostic and treatment services, many with national or regional status. Over the last decade St James's has been undergoing an extensive development programme to provide new state of the art units for many of the clinical activites with an emphasis on day care where appropriate. These include a dedicated cardiothoracic surgery unit, the acute medical admission unit as well as the new building which will shortly house a state of the art day care facility for both medical and surgical disciplines, including day-care chemotherapy unit for cancer patients. The NCHCD pilot project represents a quantum leap in the development of safety standards that can then be applied to other 'high-risk' disciplines such as chemotherapy day care.

The European Healthcare Initiative was launched by the European organisations of GS1 to significantly increase adoption of GS1 information standards – the GS1 System – in the healthcare market across Europe. Primarily concentrating on the supply chains to hospitals and community pharmacies, GS1 is convinced that the wide-spread adoption of its global standards of identification, bar coding and electronic commerce messaging in the European healthcare market, can significantly cut supply chain costs, reduce risk to patients and help improve patient care.


For further information please contact:
Jim Bracken, Director GS1 Ireland – email