Customer Identification:
The Global Location Number (GLN)
Overview
In short, GLN:
• Gets the right product to the right
place at the right time
• Has proven capable of reducing
providers’ customer numbers by 96%
• Can reduce ordering errors by 7%,
generating a potential savings to the health care
industry of between $1.72 and
$2.9 billion per year
Lack of consistent customer identifiers in
health care is a long-standing problem that can be solved with
the adoption of a consistent standard across the industry.
Today, doctors, hospitals and their suppliers use thousands of
different numbers to track the shipment of life-saving supplies
across the United States. The state of the industry today is
like running the Postal Service without ZIP codes. Not only is
it chaotic, it creates tremendous waste and costs patients,
employers and insurers millions of dollars each year.
As the US Postal Service did many years
ago, CHeS is committed to addressing the customer
identification problem to ensure that the pricing and shipment
of medical supplies is as efficient as possible. Through the
use of Global Location Numbers, or GLNs, all of the critical
linkages in the supply chain are clearly identified and
consistently numbered using a global standard that almost all
grocery stores and retailers (e.g., Wal-Mart, Target and
Safeway) are using today. It will save money—and
potentially save lives—by providing the right product to
the right patient at the right time.
The GLN Registry for Healthcare™ is a
directory of health care and health care-related facilities in
the United States, with corresponding Global Location Numbers
(GLNs). The GLN is a globally recognized identification number
used in the EAN.UCC System to identify legal entities, trading
partners, and customer locations in electronic commerce
activities.
The GLN Registry for Healthcare, was
established by GS1 US™, formerly The Uniform Code Council,
Inc.® (UCC®), leaders in facilitating efficient
international business at the urging of leading United States
health care organizations to drive down supply chain costs
through a standard precise identification of health care
locations.
The GLN provides a globally unique
identification of a functional entity. Implementation of the
GLN drives efficiencies in the supply chain, reducing invoice
errors and has the potential of saving health care
organizations billions of dollars annually.
How the GLN Works
Each location of a health care facility is
assigned a unique 13-digit data structure called a GLN. The GLN
can identify a functional entity, such as a nursing station; a
physical entity, such as a warehouse or a hospital wing; or a
legal entity or trading partner such as a specific company or
supplier. This eliminates the need for a hospital to use a
supplier’s assigned proprietary “customer
number” on orders, invoices, and other business
transactions.
Members of the GLN Registry for Healthcare,
which include hospitals, health care manufacturers, and
distributors, access an updated and accurate list of industry
manufacturers, distributors, retailers, hospitals, clinics, and
retail and mail-order pharmacies to ensure the accuracy of
their supply chain activities. The enhanced data integrity
allows health care providers and suppliers to improve
collaborative commerce activities in key electronic commerce
processes such as invoicing and logistics.
