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User group in Australasia continues to grow
Article co-authored by Tania Snioch (GS1 Australia) and Gary Hartley (GS1 New Zealand)
The GS1 Healthcare User Group Australasia is comprising representatives from all parts of the Australian and New Zealand healthcare supply chains.
Open to all GS1 Australian and GS1 New Zealand members operating in the Healthcare sector, the group serves four main functions:
1. To drive implementation of the GS1 System in the Australian and New Zealand Healthcare sectors;
2. To provide Australian and New Zealand input into the work of the global GS1 Healthcare Group;
3. To educate the Australian and New Zealand healthcare stakeholders regarding the application of the GS1 System in healthcare;
4. To address and document Australian and New Zealand specific healthcare issues and bring these to the attention of the global GS1 Healthcare group for incorporation into this group's work plan.
Participation in the Australasia user group continues to grow, with today more than 60 companies active.
Fruitful meetings
Nine different Australasia Healthcare User Group meetings have been held across the past 3 years, each focused on a specific subject.
The most recent meeting was held in November 2009 in Sydney, Australia and hosted by Abbott Australasia. Its focus was: “Regulatory developments relating to use of the GS1 System.”
Speakers were presenting on the themes of safe medication management, implementation of a national product catalogue, the Australian eHealth reform programme, a look at regulation from a supplier’s perspective, and an overview regulatory developments from around the world, among others. Healthcare leaders also shared learnings and case studies from the Global GS1 Healthcare Conference in Hong Kong. Speakers included representatives from the Australian Commission on Safety & Quality in Health Care and the Australian National eHealth Transition Authority.
The presentation on the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare, made by Margaret Duguid, Pharmaceutical Advisor to the Commission, was particularly noteworthy. The Commission was established in 2006 and its remit is to lead and coordinate safety and quality in healthcare in Australia by identifying issues and policy directions, recommending priorities for action, disseminating knowledge and advocating for safety and quality and recommend nationally agreed standards for safety and quality improvement.
The Commission is focused on several programmes, including
- Open disclosure of incidents that result in harm to a patient while receiving healthcare
- Healthcare associated infection prevention
- Patient identification issues
- Clinical handover
- Medication safety
- Safety and quality accreditation reform
- Information strategies, such as clinical quality registries and national indicators of safety and quality in health care
- Recognising and responding to clinical deterioration
Promoting and introducing systems that reduce the risks of errors in managing medications are of particular interest to the Commission. For example, reducing errors caused by similar packaging and labeling for dissimilar products, and of look-alike and sound-alike names through the use of machine-readable barcode checking systems when dispensing and administering medicines. The Commission advocates machine-readable standards-based barcodes on all medicines at unit of use level.
For more information about the GS1 Healthcare User Group Australasia, contact:
- GS1 Australia: Tania Snioch
- GS1 New Zealand: Gary Hartley