The Netherlands: Sharing best practice on the implementation and use of GS1 standards in hospitals

Information on how hospitals are using GS1 standards and barcode scanning is being collated in GS1’s Hospital Implementation Dashboard, helping share knowledge on best practice.

GS1 standards are increasingly being implemented in hospitals across the globe. By scanning barcodes assigned to products, places and people, it becomes possible to precisely track healthcare processes. However, hospitals – and even different departments within those hospitals – often approach the implementation of standards in different ways.

What this can mean is that those involved in these projects inadvertently ‘reinvent the wheel’; failing to take lessons from previous implementations. This then reduces the efficiency with which standards are implemented and the speed at which benefits are realised.