The Hindu Business Line : To streamline healthcare services — EAN India introduces barcode standards

ENHANCED patient safety, reduced medication errors, speedier and accurate billing and documentation, safer blood supplies, and updated hospital supplies inventories, all these and more, will soon be a reality in India.

EAN India, a non-profit organisation set up by various industry bodies and the Union Ministry of Commerce to promote global supply chain standards, is introducing the universal `EAN.UCC' barcode standards in the country's healthcare sector.

These barcode standards, developed by EAN International (Brussels) in collaboration with the healthcare sector, will help streamline healthcare supply chains across the country.

EAN India has already initiated discussions with various State and private hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, drug stores and blood banks across the country and major hospitals have expressed interest in adopting the globally recognised EAN.UCC standards.

Once implemented, the EAN.UCC system will enable automated and unique identification of all hospital supplies, tracking and tracing of pharma drugs, blood and blood products, surgical implants and medical supplies. Patients in hospitals will also get identified through `barcoded' wristbands that will carry a unique identifier which links to the hospital from where the patient's detailed medical history can be traced. This data can be instantly and accurately accessed for rendering emergency treatment, thus reducing error and processing time.

The system can also act as a damage containment tool by enabling fast recall of harmful, expired or spurious products from the market.

Medication errors are one of the leading causes of deaths in hospitals. A report by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, US, (IOM) has estimated that as many as 98,000 patients die each year in the US from preventable medical errors. IOM placed medical errors as the eighth leading cause of death in hospitals each year, exceeding those from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.

"Healthcare is a zero tolerance area where any error can prove fatal. Today, even though we have the best doctors in the world, we need a complete streamlining of the healthcare system in accordance with international best practices and standards to make our healthcare services and its supply chain processes world-class," says Mr Ravi Mathur, CEO, EAN India.

The organisation is also working towards implementing common electronic data interchange (EDI) standards to provide for information between hospitals and medical suppliers using structured message formats. This will enable hospitals in integrating their systems with those of their suppliers and pharmacists for automated replenishment of items.

In India, more than 300 Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers, including GlaxoSmithKline, Ranbaxy, Cipla, Pfizer, Lupin and Baxter are already using the EAN.UCC barcode standards for exports.

They will need to incorporate the same on domestic supplies as well once EAN India administers and promotes the use of it in the Indian industry.

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