The Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Coalition, a collaborative organization representing the entire healthcare supply chain, is seeking respondents for a survey to assess the level of usage of organizational identifiers in the healthcare supply chain and to quantify the problems associated with the lack of industry adoption of a common standard. The data gathered will be used to educate healthcare organizations on the importance of a common standard; more importantly, it will help providers, suppliers, and their business partners make the process transitions required to implement the standard and seamlessly recognize legal entities, trading partners and customer locations in their supply chain-related transactions. The Standards Coalition plans to make a recommendation on a standard by the end of September 2007.

As an organization comprised of healthcare providers, suppliers, group purchasing organizations, technology companies, industry associations, and governmental entities the Standards Coalition aims to enhance the quality of healthcare in the most efficient and cost effective manner through adoption and use of uniform, global supply chain standards.

"Healthcare suppliers and providers recognize they incur unnecessary costs and errors when trading partners do not use the same identifier for the same organization or location. But definitive data on what will be required for healthcare to move to a single standard, including the implementation costs and the return on investment, simply doesn't exist." says Mary Pat Elwood, chairperson for the Standard Coalition's Organizational Identifier Subcommittee and order-to-cash process improvement leader at BD. "A high level of industry participation in this study will help us provide healthcare organizations with the critical data they need to justify adoption of a single standard organizational identifier."

"Choosing a standard is important, but it is only the beginning. Industry-wide adoption won't happen unless we offer concrete steps and outline the costs for implementing a standard," says Joseph Dudas, Standards Coalition co-chair and director, accounting and supply chain informatics at Mayo Clinic. "Defining the how is every bit as important as selecting a standard, and we need strong industry participation to be successful."

The survey will remain open until August 24, 2007 and takes approximately 15 minutes to complete online. All individual responses will be held confidential. Interested parties can take the survey at this url: click here.

About the Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Coalition

The Healthcare Supply Chain Standards Coalition is a collaborative of organizations representing the entire healthcare supply chain working to enable the delivery of quality patient care in a cost-effective and efficient manner through the adoption of industry standards. The Standards Coalition utilizes a rigorous and transparent process, facilitated by The National Alliance for Health Information Technology, to make recommendations on specific standards and plans for enabling their use. The Standards Coalition is comprised of healthcare providers, suppliers, group purchasing organizations, technology companies, industry associations, and governmental entities. Current members include: Abbott, American Hospital Association, Amerinet, Ascension Health, Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM), BD, Coalition for Healthcare eStandards (CheS), Consorta Catholic Resource Partners, U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Geisinger Health System Foundation, GHX, Inland Northwest Health Services, Intermountain Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices & Diagnostics, Lawson, Mayo Clinic, McKesson Corporation, MedAssets , Mercy Health System ROI , Novation, Premier, Inc., Sentara Healthcare, Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI), University Hospitals.

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