SPECIAL FOCUS
and provider facilities just exacerbated the impact of shortages caused by unantici- pated demand.”
Still, tracking and traceability, as well as accuracy, remain key benefits of inventory visibility, she insisted.
“It is critical for providers to know not only where medical devices are, but also whether they are interchangeable with supplies needed elsewhere,” she indicated. “Understanding device interoperability re- lies on robust attribute information that can be captured in the master data maintained by health systems.”
O’Bara cites a ventilator as a prime ex-
ample. A ventilator made for use in the U.. is configured to work at 11 volts, but that same machine could not be used in Europe where the standard is volts. he voltage configuration is ust one of the attributes that should be associated with the product’s GTIN in the hospital’s master database, along with other pertinent details, she added.
“Full inventory visibility with complete and accurate data also allows providers to plan for procurement, maintenance and replenishment,” she said. he COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of using a single data standard to provide and promote supply visibility, insists John Freund, President and CEO, Jump Technologies Inc. “When the virus hit, hos- pitals found they were unable to track how much inventory they had, where it was located, when they would run out, and who was using it,” Freund said. “Having data standards
John Freund
that emphasize supply chain visibility would make it easier not only to answer these questions for a single hospital, but it would make it easier for an entire health system or government agency to access current inventory data on a city, state and regional basis.” The model extends beyond what happens inside of a facility to what happens between facilities, too. “Standards are big internally but they
are equally important externally,” Freund acknowledged. “I think hospitals can work with their current distributors and manufacturers today just fine as there are data standards in place for that level of communication. Standards become much more important when trying to communicate externally beyond your current integrated supply chain. When and if another pandemic hits, the entire healthcare supply chain needs to be able to communicate using the same ‘language,’
or in this case, data standards. If I am in need of 9 masks and want to see what is available around me either from a distributor, manufacturer, other hospital or government agency, we all need to be calling an 9 mask the same thing. o if I could look up a single item number that indicated that this was an 9 mask, it would make it very easy for me to have visibility into all 9 masks in my hospital, IDN, city, state, region or country.” Inventory Optimization Solutions’ (IOS)
Vice President, Business Development, Jeff Lawrence, concurs that visibility within a single facility or across a nation- wide enterprise should be the ultimate goal.
“Data standards can act
as the Rosetta Stone to inventory management, helping achieve new levels of accuracy that aren’t based on inconsistent product descriptions or an inventory clerk’s recall,” Lawrence said. “Why is this important? You’ll always know how much [and] what you have where, and combined with better insight to usage, you’ll improve manage- ment of on-hand inventory, which is how we can reset supply levels, reduce spend, eliminate waste, and most importantly, improve cash flow. Yet Karen Conway, Vice President,
Jeff Lawrence
Healthcare Value, GHX, points out that supply-data-standard-enabled visibility should not be limited to inventory.
“One of the most im- portant benefits of stan- dards is that it enables multiple parties to speak the same language, or in other words – as I like to
“Standardization allows
for data to be defined, cat- egorized, connected and interpreted more easily. By adopting standards, the entire internal and ex- ternal supply chain will be communicating the same
Melissa Amell
way, and this will allow for a consistent identification and cross collaboration across all industries involved in the support and delivery of healthcare in a timely and ef- ficient manner, Amell said.
“Product tracking and traceability is the pinnacle of utilizing data standards in supply chain,” said Carl Henshaw, Direc- tor, Standards Implementation, Vizient Inc. “The ability to track products brings increased accuracy, waste reduction and inventory visibility. Additionally, within health care, this enables another critically important benefit, which is the ability to track
Carl Henshaw
outcomes and manage product recalls, which in some cases is a matter of life and death. The FDA put in place unique device identification (UDI) requirements to track products all the way from the manufacturer to the electronic health record. The UDI has the ability to tie the entire supply chain together.”
Karen Conway
say in highly technical language – to call the same thing, the same thing, regard- less of what we are doing with the thing,” she said. “This, in turn, helps functions and organizations across the healthcare ecosystem to share, analyze and act upon the data for multiple purposes, including but not limited to inventory management, product tracking and tracing, waste reduc- tion and visibility into how products are performing in routine clinical practice.”
Connecting the dots Product tracking and traceability likely will take center stage within many or- ganiations in a post-COVID-19 world because of the benefits to both internal and external business processes within a healthcare provider, according to Melissa Amell, Director, Healthcare Industry & Solution Strategy, Infor.
These efforts migrate to reimbursement as well with financial implications, ac- cording to Jean Sargent, Principal, Sargent Healthcare Strategies, a veteran supply chain leader and healthcare supply data standards evangelist. “CMS is working to up- date the billing form to capture the UDI,” Sargent indicated. “This informa- tion will be included in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).
Jean Sargent
When this information is not included, the reimbursement will be effected. The bet- ter argument is for recall, evidence-based outcomes [and] registries. If a patient has a total hip [procedure] in California, is now traveling to Florida and has an issue, the physician must know what type, brand etc. of the current implant. Until then, there is a delay in surgery, which may have an impact on the patient’s health. If the UDI is in the American Joint Registry by UDI, the time to surgery is lessened by up to days.” Health Information Exchange require- ments under Meaningful Use Stage 3 play an important role in the regulatory tract, according to Carl Gomberg, Lead Solu- tion Analyst, Premier Inc. “Providers are required to include UDI for implantable
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