Coalition for Healthcare eStandards
Establishes Healthcare Industryís First Open Standard
for Classifying Products and Services
Ann Arbor, Mich., June 3, 2002 - The Coalition for Healthcare eStandards,
Inc. (CHeS), founded by the leading group purchasing
organizations and e-commerce companies serving the healthcare
market, has developed the industryís first open standard
product taxonomy. The results have been published as Segments
41 and 42 of the United Nations Standard Products and Services
Code (UNSPSCô). Over the coming months, CHeS will
spearhead the taxonomyís adoption in the healthcare
industry.
This taxonomy is a hierarchical
classification system that transforms e-commerce from a
purchasing channel into an analytical tool. Hospitals that use
this new taxonomy will be able to source products faster, and
can better analyze their purchasing patterns. With more
accurate hospital purchasing records, group purchasing
organizations will have an additional tool that provides
improvement in their ability to negotiate pricing. The new
taxonomy will allow suppliers to simplify publishing their
electronic sales catalogs to multiple channels, as well as to
enable suppliers and buyers to communicate about purchases in a
universally understood language.
After investigating several options, CHeS
decided to endorse the UNSPSC. The UNSPSC enables members of
the healthcare supply chain to consistently classify the
products and services they buy and sell. The UNSPSC is the
first product taxonomy available to the healthcare industry
that is not a part of a proprietary, commercial product or
service. It is available free of charge to anyone who wants to
use it.
ìA global taxonomy is a critical
step to helping hospitals and suppliers manage their supply
chains. Today, people are not calling the same product the same
thing, which causes substantial inefficiencies and costs for
all healthcare constituents. The UNSPSC creates a framework for
standardization identification which fixes that problem and
reduces costs as a result,î says Mark McDougall,
executive director of CHeS. ìThere is more work to do in
developing a comprehensive set of electronic purchasing
standards, and this endorsement helps set the foundation for
that effort.î
Development of this taxonomy has been an
industry-wide collaboration. CHeS recruited subject matter
experts from 25 organizations, including suppliers, healthcare
providers, group purchasing organizations, e-commerce
companies, and other third parties to add and refine the
standard’s category codes to cover all healthcare
products. More than a year of labor-intensive research resulted
in a complete rewrite of the UNSPSC Segment 42 Medical
Equipment and Accessories and Supplies, which was approved by
the UNSPSC membership and published on March 1, 2002. A major
update to the UNSPSC Segment 41 Laboratory and Measuring and
Observing and Testing Equipment was approved and published
April 15, 2002.
The United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) and Dunn & Bradstreet (D&B) jointly created the
UNSPSC in 1998 through the merger of the U. N. Common Coding
System and D&B's Standard Products and Services
Classification. By agreement of the code's co-creators, UNDP
holds all intellectual property rights in UNSPSC.
The UNSPSC is housed at www.unspsc.com.
Those interested in participating in further updates to the
UNSPSC can do so by registering at this Web site.
About The Coalition for Healthcare
eStandards
The Coalition for Healthcare eStandards is
a group of leading healthcare purchasers, manufacturers,
distributors and e-commerce companies advocating for the
adoption of uniform industry standards for supply chain
transactions over the Internet. Formed in June 2000, members of
the Coalition include AmeriNet, Consorta, Global Healthcare
Exchange, LLC, MedCenterDirect, Medibuy, Neoforma, Novation,
Premier and the U.S. Department of Defense ñ Defense
Supply Center Philadelphia. This group represents participants
from across the healthcare supply chain. Visit
www.CHeStandards.org for more information.
About the United Nations Development
Programme
UNDP is the UN's principal provider of
development advice, advocacy and grant support. With more than
130 country offices, its focus is on providing developing
countries with knowledge-based consulting services and building
national, regional and global coalitions for change. UNDP has
specialized expertise in the areas of democratic governance,
poverty reduction, energy and environment, crisis prevention
and recovery, HIV/AIDS, and information and communications
technology.
For more information please contact:
Mark McDougall, Coalition for Healthcare
eStandards, Inc.
734.677.3300
Sue Dressel, Coalition for Healthcare
eStandards
734-677-3300 / april@CheStandards.org
