An initiative of the Australian Digital Health Agency (formerly the National E-Health Transition Authority or NEHTA), the National Product Catalogue (NPC) is a central repository of healthcare-related product data and specific customer pricing that is an integral core component to enabling an eProcurement solution designed to streamline the electronic purchasing process throughout the healthcare supply chain.
The NPC provides suppliers with a single mechanism to deliver standardised and accurate product and price data electronically to health departments and private hospital providers. It is the single source of item master data for health institutions seeking to purchase medicines, medical devices, and other healthcare items, and also non-healthcare consumables used by these entities.
The NPC is hosted by GS1 Australia on GS1net, its data synchronisation platform. This platform enables the secure sharing of information such as product identifiers and descriptions, units of measure, package contents, product classification, pricing and related healthcare information. The platform also conforms to a global systems architecture that will, in the near future, enable the exchange of data between GS1net/NPC and other compatible data pools around the world. This provides an important solution for the many healthcare suppliers who trade globally – enabling them to tightly control product master data and disseminate it to the many regions in which they trade. The NPC in Australia is taking the lead in this globally relevant initiative.
Watch this video from GS1 Australia to see how the NPC will:
- Reduce errors
- Increase supply chain efficiency
- Lower costs
- Streamline procurement and tender processes
State, Territory and Federal Health Departments now require suppliers to populate the NPC with item master data for the purposes of tenders and contracts and to ensure this information is kept up-to-date. With 300,000+ items and 400+ suppliers, the NPC is fast becoming a fact of doing business in the healthcare sector today.