Single dose marking in the Netherlands
EFFICIENTE LOGISTIEK, OPTIMALE ZORG!
With the title "EFFICIENTE LOGISTIEK, OPTIMALE ZORG!" the foundation ZorgDAS organised together with GS1 Netherland a conference about Healthcare Identification and marking, on 3 November 2005 (efficient logistics, optimal provisioning)
Tjoapack helps reducing medication errors
Is the right patient receiving the right drugs in the right dosage at the right time? Also in the Netherlands this topic finds its place high on the agenda. On 8 May 2003, a kick off meeting took place for a bed-side scanning pilot.
Goal
The pilot concerns to develop software for creating a subscription and controlling the administration at bed-side. This will decrease errors and will result in less stress for the hospital staff. For the primary identification of the drugs the international GS1 System will be used. The GS1 System provides the Reduced Space Symbology and Composite Symbology (RSS/CS) and the Datamatrix for unit dose packages.
International ADC system on single unit doses
The developments in the Dutch Healthcare sector have lead to a choice for the GS1 System in 2000. For the Dutch pharmacists, this will eventually cause a growing number of drugs, bar-coded with GS1 barcodes. In line with the FDA decision (on 13 March 2003) to demand barcodes on Unit Dose Packages, the Dutch hospital pharmacies choose to prefer the GS1-RSS/CS symbologies on unit doses on 19 March 2003. At first, in this pilot the content of the RSS/CS barcode will contain a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), followed by an expiration date and batch number.
Tjoapack will provide the hospital with pre-packed single unit doses printed with GS1-RSS/CS barcodes, and necessarily will re-pack or re-label other packaging forms.
At this moment, Tjoapack is the only pharmaceutical contract packager who is able to print the GS1-RSS/CS on single unit doses. Tjoapack prints in line, on labels or directly on the foil, the high density GS1-RSS/CS barcodes.
Pilot participants
The participants to this pilot are, besides Tjoapack, the Hospital Pharmacy of the TweeStedenZiekenhuis located in Tilburg, the hard- and software supplier Zetes, GS1 Netherlands, and the wholesaler Interpharm (part of Alliance Unichem).
Notes for the Editors
Tjoapack B.V., founded in 1989 by Eric Tjoa, was the first company on the Dutch market to supply Unit Dose Packaging (UDPs) with bar coding. Since then, Tjoapack has developed into a contract packager of solid oral drugs with expertise in a broad area. In recent years, the company has grown considerably, and this growth will continue in years to come. The company works for both suppliers of proprietary medicinal products and generic medicines and for (pharmaceutical) wholesalers in the Netherlands as well as abroad. Tjoapack offers more than packaging alone. They offer the entire package from packaging up to and including dispatch, provided with consultancy and support
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