Canadian Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Project

The Canadian Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Project is a national initiative spearheaded by GS1 Canada in collaboration with the Canadian healthcare sector and with support from the provincial governments of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The goal is the project is for all healthcare institutions to adhere to globally recognized supply chain standards in order to make the healthcare system more efficient and accurate, and therefore safer, by:

• Reducing supply chain and medication errors
• Deterring counterfeiting
• Enabling efficient and effective traceability
• Maximizing the intellectual capital of our healthcare professionals
• Decreasing production and supply chain costs to direct more resources toward patient care

Phase 1 - Completed

• Secured industry awareness, engagement and commitment to vision
• Defined standards and protocol for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in Canadian healthcare
• Defined standards for Automatic Identification and Data Capture AIDC of products (GTIN) and locations (GLN)

Phase 2 - Implementation

Phase 2, currently underway, focuses on assisting healthcare trading partners with the implementation of global GS1 supply chain standards defined in Phase 1, as well as an industry-defined implementation roadmap. This roadmap includes milestones to ensure the Canadian healthcare sector is prepared to meet the sunrise dates of December 31, 2010 and December 31, 2012 for the adoption of the GLN and GTIN, respectively.

Milestones include:

• Healthcare Industry Outreach, Engagement and Education Program
• EDI Standards Advancement and Implementation
• 2 pilot projects
• Data Synchronization, Product /Location Standards Implementation
• 2 pilot projects