The national alliance’s Premier Purchasing Partners L.P., marshaled the collective endorsement of 25 members of its Strategic Advisory Committee formally to request that contracted suppliers adopt GS1 data standards and processes to "improve patient safety, reduce avoidable supply chain costs and advance collaborative supply chain performance initiatives."

In a letter to suppliers signed by 25 supply chain leaders ranked from corporate director to senior vice president – including one CEO – from a bevy of prominent healthcare provider organizations, the committee extolled the GS1 standards and outlined a five-year plan for adoption, culminating by the close of December 2012.

Premier called for a formal launch and education effort in 2008, which included modifying contract terms and conditions to include requirements for standards compliance.

In 2009, Premier requested that providers and suppliers recognize Global Location Numbers (GLN) and that the suppliers begin to register Global Trade Item Numbers (GTIN) for their products.

Premier is requiring its providers and suppliers to recognize and use GLNs by the close of 2010 and the use of GTINs for all products by the end of 2012.

Such requirements, according to Premier, also include registering with GS1 to receive a GTIN number block and with the GLN Registry for Healthcare; building the "capability to leverage GLNs in enterprise systems and business processes," as well as aligning business partner account numbers with GLNs and using "GLN location data and GTIN item data on all order-to-cash business transactions that reference locations."

Joe Pleasant Jr.

Joe Pleasant Jr., FHIMSS, senior vice president and CIO at Premier discussed with Healthcare Purchasing News his organization’s muscle behind data synchronization standards adoption.

PLEASANT: It is our intent, for all products and services with any Premier contracted vendor, that each of our contracts will require that products have Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) on them to the level of issue.

There may be exceptions given certain types of products. For instance, it may not be possible to put a code on a product due to the product’s physical size and shape or because of patient safety issues due to the environment in which the product will be placed. But we will insist on the ability to track the product life-cycle from start to finish.

As the groundswell of support for GS1 standards continues via GPOs, the FDA and others, we feel that our members and suppliers will want to adhere to these standards in order to improve efficiency and safety within this time period. But, for instance, if FDA suggests a differing time frame or specific requirements that we have not considered, we would clearly look at adhering to such.

We are very interested in working with our members and suppliers to understand unique needs and situations so that we are able to achieve these goals.

We are and will continue to work with our member hospitals and suppliers, educating them on how using GS1 standards improves both patient safety and efficiency.

Likewise, some of our members are also educating their peers and leading by example. Recently, 25 of our member healthcare systems representing 100s of hospitals and treating millions of patients – the leading healthcare institutions in the world – endorsed these standards. And organizations like AHRMM and GS1 are working to further education and drive increased compliance.

We believe that, in order to make progress, goals need to be established, and deadlines and timeframes need to be stated. Without such an approach, we do not believe we will see the movement we need to further enhance supply chain efficiency and patient safety. We need to get the ball rolling for the sake of our patients and the hospitals we serve.

No. The majority of our hospitals have asked to have this type of structure in place, and many have endorsed them. But there will be no punitive measures for our members. We will do what we can to educate them and work with them toward standardization.

The majority of our members have requested these standards. We have not set any annual quotas at this point, nor looked at these types of percentages. We do have an internal project plan that outlines the number of members and hospitals that we contact and schedule education and implementation sessions with on a month by month basis.

We will work with them in any way possible to assist with education and information regarding the importance of these standards. We will likewise work with organizations such as GS1 and AHRMM. We are doing what we can to avoid getting to a position of enforcement and will address that issue as needed as we get closer to the deadlines. As mentioned, as the groundswell of support for these standards continue, we feel that our suppliers will want to adhere to these standards for efficiency and safety sake within this time period.

We will know better as the process proceeds and we continue to work with suppliers, the FDA and GS1. It is our intent that every product not prohibited because of size, shape and safety requirements would have GTIN numbers on them. We have not set any annual quotas at this point, nor looked at these types of percentages. We do have an internal project plan that outlines the number of suppliers that we contact and schedule education and implementation sessions with on a month by month basis.

It is our hope that our suppliers will want to comply for the sake of safety and efficiency. We feel that those that comply will also be looked upon in a favorable manner by the industry as a whole, especially as support for overall compliance continues to grow.

All of the systems are in varying stages of the process of adopting-educating-implementing these standards. They clearly understand the benefits and have committed to moving forward within their institutions to further enhance patient safety and efficiency. When these types of highly respected and successful organizations make this type of commitment, others will follow.