2nd Healtcare Event

Hartmut Malik, Bayer Healthcare, informed the interested audience about the bar coding guideline of the International Federation of Animal Health (IFAH) and how Bayer puts it into practice. According to the guideline, Bayer has started to label each package with a Data Matrix following the GS1 system.

Marion Vennedey, St. Marien Hospital Bonn, presented a scanning project she has initiated with B. Braun. The project focussed on the logistic processes in the distribution centre of the hospital and was based on GS1 bar codes. The intermediate results show time savings of over 315 hours p.a. when using scanners for goods receipt, storage and inventory processes and goods issue. Even more important than the time savings are the quality improvements, e.g. accurate data and transparency, automated documentation of batches as well as check of expiry dates.

Halim Said Boustani, Medical Columbus, provided a good overview of the possibilities of e-commerce and its advantages for all stakeholders in the healthcare supply chain. By using GS1 standards for identification like the GLN and e-com messages like EANCOM or GS1 XML both hospitals and suppliers can optimise the procurement process.

Matthias Pfletschinger, Novartis, gave an interesting inside into the usage of RFID/EPC to secure track & trace. There are three main drivers for the homonymous initiative of Novartis: the improvement of patient safety, because counterfeited drugs can cause severe damages, the anticipation and compliance with already existing but also with future regulatory requirements (e.g. FDA) and brand protection. EPC as global RFID standard is seen as the most appropriate instrument to achieve a secure pharmaceutical supply chain.

Dr. Florian Michahelles, Auto-ID Labs St. Gallen, showed in an impressive way the expansion of counterfeited drugs and how to cope with them. The progressive development of RFID in combination with EPC opens up new perspectives, because each package of a drug can be identified unambiguously and its way throughout the whole supply chain from the manufacturer down to the patient can be tracked. A counterfeited drug will be detected much more easier than it is today.

Falk Zwicker, University of Bayreuth, explained how RFID can be used in a so called “Smart hospital”. He reported about a planned pilot project in the university hospital of Freiburg where both the time schedule of the physicians and the flow of patients could be managed with RFID in an optimal way. A huge waste of waiting time could be avoided, especially in cases of emergencies where physicians first have to treat the emergency patients and the others have to wait. This waiting time could be used e.g. for other treatments. RFID is the technological basis in this project, because by tagging the physicians and the patients the data of their whereabouts could be captured in an automated way so that the management of patients could be optimised.