Supply fidelis

Under cover of darkness and cloaked by disguise humans will do just about anything to get ahead, satisfy themselves or take advantage of something. It’s our nature, and for many, nurture.

Flick on a light, hook up a camera or a sound-recording device, and we’ll likely behave, submitting to societal rules and mores.

The point? When it comes to doing the right thing — what’s clearly in the best interests of everyone — self-control, self-direction and self-policing simply fall short.

In healthcare, effectively tracking and tracing supplies, services, pharmaceuticals and equipment represents a classic case of avoiding doing the right thing.

Bar codes as tracking/tracing mechanisms on healthcare products for healthcare organizations can be traced back to the early 1970s when they were employed by a fraction of providers even as the larger suppliers with tentacles into the direct-to-consumer/retail markets printed UPC branding on their products for retail sales.

Since then, we’ve witnessed the ebb and flow of numerous initiatives and projects to promote and reinforce data standards and markings on products to facilitate track-and-trace capabilities. They include the Common Category Database (CCD) in the late 1980s to the first UPN initiative in the 1990s to the HIBCC/GS1 campaigns to the latest UPN initiative today.

Much to our chagrin (and inherent peril), the vast majority of the industry has not adopted and implemented supply data standards and effective track-and-trace capabilities on products.

• Too many debates and discussions have all but smothered and stifled actual implementation momentum and progress.
• Too many demands for detailed case studies (how much documentation is needed to reinforce sound logic anyway?) on the costs and benefits of product data standards and track-and-trace implementation have served either as a stalling tactic or a convenient excuse to deny change.
• Too many fingers pointing in opposite directions on who should implement supply data standards and track-and-trace capabilities and pay for it all. (Here’s a hint…if this doesn’t happen, we ALL pay in the long run.)
• Too many remain unwilling to allow the government regulators and payers to hold the industry financially accountable and responsible for the lack of supply data standards and track-and-trace capabilities necessary for product safety, security and fidelity.

So far, the government and payers refuse to wield the cudgel necessary to modify behavior even as a last resort. Providers and suppliers may be grateful for check and balance, but consumers should be wary because they essentially must exhibit blind faith and trust in a process and system that first may do no harm but can’t be quickly tracked or traced when harm surfaces.

We can — and should — do better.

How? Short of suppliers and providers or government and payers doing the right thing, maybe it’s time for a #SafetyMatters movement to emerge — but not one pushed by activist protesters embedded within the general public.

This movement should be driven by the one group personally and professionally affected by the lack of accountability in supply fidelity: Physicians.

Who better to drive the point home that a lack of product tracking and tracing throughout the supply chain potentially causes harm to patients than those who actually use the products and work on patients?

The force of tens of thousands of supply chain professionals and C-suite executives over the years pales in comparison to the market-moving might of hundreds of thousands of doctors and surgeons under the rallying banner of the influential American Medical Association. Who else can link patient safety and professional income (think liability and malpractice) to product reliability and validity?

Until now, too many players have taken management roles in promoting supply data standards and track-and-trace implementation. It’s high time for someone to take a leadership role in driving what we all know needs to be done.

We need to start asking, “What’s up, Doc?” before the reimbursement controllers start threatening, “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”