COVID-19 vaccine shots setting, bending
bar on data standards

COVID-19 dose administration illuminates need for tracking, tracing accuracy
Rick Dana Barlow
May 25th, 2021

EXCERPT ONLY – LINK TO COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE

“We need transparent and rigorous implementation of Unique Device Identification (UDI) for medical supplies, used as ubiquitously as NDCs are used with pharmaceuticals. Without consistent application of UDI, we will continue to see the failures and gaps in our supply chain systems and processes.

“One of the biggest challenges still in the healthcare system is that legacy technology does not enable business intelligence, and we still deal with gaps between supply chain and clinical data, which create inconsistent results. The road to system data sharing and interoperability is a long one and with so much data residing in separate systems, we need to access available technology and methodologies that will extract data and make it actually usable. For example, data lakes are now being used, creating secure locations where uncleansed and unstructured data can be structured and analyzed, making it newly consumable and creating greater business intelligence.

“Assimilating, understanding this data will help reduce the risks inherent in the supply chain. Let’s use the technology available today to overcome system and data gaps. The inflection point of leveraging data standards to digitally identify both people and products has already happened. Let’s not waste the opportunity to learn and improve. We have the capability today to use enhanced data and analytics and improve clinical and supply chain alignment, in turn delivering better care to patients and business performance for our organizations.”

by Ashok Muttin, CEO, SupplyCopia