New Deloitte report supports adoption of GS1 standards and barcode implementation to ensure safety and trust in Covid-19 vaccination

Deloitte white paper highlights why common standards across the global healthcare supply chain are essential as the world undergoes the largest deployment of vaccines in history

TORONTO, Jan. 21, 2021 /CNW/ - As governments and businesses around the world face one of the most significant healthcare events history – an unprecedented rapid mass development, distribution, and administration of COVID-19 vaccines – a new report issued by Deloitte points to the benefits of universal adoption of global standards across the healthcare supply chain worldwide to enable fast, efficient, and safe distribution. Global public health officials have reinforced those sentiments, with Tom Woods, Chairman of the Global Steering Committee for Quality Assurance of Health Products for the World Bank, calling for the adoption of common standards including barcode scanning, "the most important and under-discussed element in preventing vaccine distribution failures and ensuring traceability and patient safety in the COVID-19 vaccination campaign."

The Deloitte study, "Securing Trust in the Global COVID-19 Supply Chain," finds that, in addition to industry collaboration and transparent communication, "embracing GS1 standards adds an element of trust at all levels of the supply chain – a trust that ultimately extends to the patients themselves". GS1 global standards enable pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributing companies and healthcare providers to follow protocols and safety measures critical to ensuring public trust and confidence, both in the vaccine itself and the ability to roll out multi-dose vaccinations efficiently.

Barcodes carrying GS1 standards uniquely and securely identify medical products, including vaccines, from laboratories and clinical trials to point of administration. GS1 standards bring transparency and help to improve supply chain coordination, decreasing the risk of vaccine diversion, date expiration and fake vaccines, while enabling the timely administration of second doses. 

While the adoption of GS1 standards continues to expand in the healthcare field, they are not yet universally applied. The Deloitte study calls vaccine identification information (such as product identifier, lot number, and expiration date) "essential for healthcare providers to administer vaccines with confidence," noting that, "the WHO recommends that all vaccines be identified with this data in a standardized barcode." GAVI and UNICEF have also required the use of GS1 standards on the secondary packages of vaccines.

In Canada, the essential players of the vaccine supply chain rely on GS1 standards, including barcodes, as the backbone for their supply chains, and are already providing visibility to their pharmaceutical product data through Canada's national product registry (ECCnet Registry). This commitment provides the foundation for safe vaccine distribution and administration to the point of patient record, and together, they are urging the Canadian government to take leadership to ensure safe and secure implementation within Canada's healthcare system.

Miguel Lopera, President and CEO at GS1 noted, "an unprecedented level of research, collaboration and investment has brought hope in the form of COVID-19 vaccines. The world now faces, however, an enormous distribution and administration challenge where global identification standards have a critical role to play. Countries around the world are implementing massive vaccination campaigns under enormous time pressure, all while the virus continues to kill thousands of people every day. Global Standards can help enable the proper identification and tracking of vaccines in the global healthcare industry and reduce the chances for error. GS1 stands ready to help all stakeholders succeed in this critical operation." 

Greg Reh, Global Life Sciences & Health Care Industry Leader, Deloitte added, "For vaccine developers, health care stakeholders, and society at large, the level of transparency and public trust will determine COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and confidence. The continued adoption of global standards from organisations like GS1 are helping to instill that confidence in the Covid-19 vaccines." 

Today more than 70 countries have healthcare regulations or trading partner requirements for which industry uses GS1 standards. These countries rely on GS1 DataMatrix two-dimensional (2D) barcodes that can encode vaccine identification information to help reduce errors and enable traceability. 

As some countries are experiencing tracking difficulties linking vaccines to patients at point of administration, the Deloitte report notes that "it is important to identify and label the vaccines capturing precisely which patient received which vaccine, and when." Globally unique identification and GS1 barcoding can support that critical task.

On January 28, a global healthcare dialogue is bringing together senior leaders from the healthcare industry and life sciences value chain, including the WHO, World Bank and Deloitte, to discuss key challenges, opportunities and early learnings presented by the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

For further information on the report and to register for the event, please click here.

About GS1 Healthcare

GS1 Healthcare is a neutral and open community bringing together healthcare stakeholders to lead the successful development and implementation of global GS1 standards, enhancing patient safety, and operational and supply chain efficiencies.

The development and implementation of GS1 standards is led by the experts who use them: pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, group purchasing organizations, hospitals, pharmacies, logistics providers, solution providers, governmental and regulatory bodies, and trade associations. Evidence available from industry implementations shows that GS1 identification, data capture and data sharing standards in healthcare deliver tangible benefit to all stakeholders. GS1 Healthcare members include more than 100 leading healthcare organizations worldwide. 

About GS1 Canada

GS1 Canada is a neutral, not-for-profit association that develops and maintains global standards for efficient business communication, improving the efficiency, safety, security, sustainability and visibility of value chains across physical and digital channels. Our scale and reach help ensure that GS1 standards provide a common language that supports systems and processes across the globe.

In Canada, through our unique community management role, we collaborate with business leaders, industry and sector boards, advisory councils and work groups to develop standards, guidelines and non-proprietary industry managed solutions to support subscribers of all sizes across multiple sectors.

GS1 Canada is a global leader in data quality, and the primary source of truth for data excellence for Canadian industry. 

For more information, visit gs1ca.org

SOURCE GS1 Canada