Amerinet selects 1SYNC for accessing product information in the GDSN

Amerinet Inc., a national healthcare group purchasing organization, today continued its leadership in helping to standardize the healthcare supply chain by choosing 1SYNC™ as its data pool for accessing product information in the Global Data Synchronization Network^® (GDSN^®).

The GDSN facilitates the sharing of data among supply-chain partners in an automated, standards-based, electronic environment. In order to access the GDSN, organizations must first select a data pool. 1SYNC, the GS1 US data pool, is the leading data pool for the GDSN, which is a standard developed and maintained by the global, not-for-profit GS1 organization. Healthcare is a growing portion of the GDSN, with 1SYNC connecting the largest number of healthcare suppliers.

GS1 provides established supply-chain standards that enable the sharing of standardized product and location information and ensures that all supply-chain partners are using identical, up-to-date, reliable data. The standards include:

• Global Trade Item Number^® (GTIN^®) – a standardized number (similar to a UPC symbol) used to uniquely identify manufactured products, at each packaging level.
• Global Location Number (GLN) – a standardized number used to uniquely identify healthcare provider and supplier locations.
• Global Data Synchronization Network – which stores GTIN and GLN data, allowing users to access information regarding products, including changes and updates.

Amerinet is a member of the GDSN Early Adoption Group facilitated by GS1 Healthcare US. The group has been instrumental in accelerating education and implementation efforts relative to the GDSN. “Amerinet has been an early adopter in implementing these standards with the goal of improving patient safety and driving costs out of the supply chain,” said Mary Beth Lang, Amerinet’s senior vice president, business intelligence and spend analytics and president, Diagnostix. “1SYNC is a leader in synchronizing data across the global supply and demand chains, and we look forward to working with them to help our members and suppliers enhance their operational efficiency and effectiveness.”

Amerinet has proactively funded and obtained GLNs for members for the past four years and has been working with suppliers to implement the use of GLNs and GTINs. They also completed successful GDSN pilots with the Department of Defense and GS1 Global, said Lang, who is a member of the GS1 Healthcare leadership group.

“This decision demonstrates how serious Amerinet is in its intent to improve both patient safety and supply-chain efficiency,” said Bob Carpenter, CEO of GS1 US. “Our 1SYNC data pool connects more trading partners around the world than any other GDSN data pool, and offers cost-effective operations with solutions and services that support user needs and make implementation easier, to fully unlock the value of data synchronization.”

Amerinet also fully supports the adoption of GS1 standards by the industry-accepted “sunrise” dates of December 31, 2010, for the GLN and December 31, 2012, for the GTIN. Beginning in 2012, Amerinet will require all successful contract bidders to be in compliance with GS1 standards.