In the classic yarn, "Chicken Little," the eponymous character scurries around screaming about the sky falling to the extent that no one believes him when it finally does.

In the 21st Century re-imagined Disney film version, the bird’s frustrated efforts turn out to be a colossal misunderstanding – a thinly veiled public service message against dysfunctional communication – before [spoiler alert if you’ve never seen the movie] everyone finally sees the truth and the classic, if not cliché, happy ending emerges. If only Middle East peace negotiations worked like this.

The brain trust behind the Food and Drug Administration’s Unique Device Identifier (UDI) program could use some of Disney’s magic to goose the effort even farther forward than it is today in lieu of mandates.

Unfortunately, too many consider the UDI yet another entry in a long line of acronymic fads that will pass once its 15 minutes of fame expires.

But such a snarky point-of-view would be rather short-sighted, if not simplistically imbecilic.

Indeed, there just might be a slim chance that the UDI will suffer the same fate as its progenitors – initial combustion, followed by lukewarm reception over time and then casually dismissive shrugs. However, that’s highly unlikely given the fact that the Food and Drug Administration seems more serious than it’s ever been in supporting a standard nomenclature for medical devices.

Unless you’ve eschewed all multimedia options, traveled to a parallel dimension or blatantly ignored the spot-on, puncture-perfect promotion of the UDI in recent years you should be aware of the logic behind the letters: Integrity, quality and safety of a supply chain inextricably linked to patient care delivery.

Of course, you’ve heard all of those arguments before, which is precisely the point. Contextual background. How so?

Simple. If you look back at each familiar, and arguably similar, foray you should notice a progressive surge that grows deeper the farther the issue moves forward. Huh?

Try this allegory: Save for the "Back to the Future" film trio back in the 1980s, much of the succeeding media-driven pop culture references to the messy and murky time travel concept (see the "Terminator" film quartet as of this year and the TV series "Lost") weave an underlying theme into their plots. The bottom line: No matter what you do you’re unable to completely change the future, which will inevitably arrive where it’s supposed to, despite incremental detours.

Casting aside chaos theory, string theory and otherwise geekified sci-fi-driven psychobabble loosely routed in physics you are left with momentum. Like a car rolling down a hill. Sure, you can tap the brakes or jerk the transmission into reverse and violently slam on the accelerator, but eventually, the brake pads will wear down or you’ll run out of gas.

So what does all of this rabbit-trail nonsense have to do with UDI? In context, it means the UDI or something type of product-identifying mark like it is inevitable. To quote the hostile alien race in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" series: "Resistance is futile." To add to the rhetoric: Ignorance is dangerous; dismissal is deadly.

With CMS creating a growing list of non-reimbursed preventable medical errors, and government politicos and pundits and healthcare industry players clamoring for more information technology to drive inefficiency and waste out of the system, there’s no stopping the looming juggernaut of unique device identification. That’s neither a threat nor resignation. It’s reality.

The sooner the industry faces this and accepts this with determination and dignity the sooner the industry will achieve reform – but not without pain.