Healthcare Industry: National Product Catalogue
What is the National Product Catalogue (NPC)?
NPC (National Product Catalogue) Business Benefits
The National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), in association with GS1 Australia, is rolling out the National Product Catalogue (NPC). Endorsed by all State, Territory and Federal Health Departments, the NPC is the 'single source’ of item master data for public health institutions seeking to purchase medicines, medical devices and other necessary healthcare items.
The National Product Catalogue is a single repository of product, pricing and healthcare data for all Health Industry Product Categories for the purpose of data synchronisation. These categories include pharmaceutical, medical devices (including orthopedics, implants, dental, imaging, etc), catering and food services, cleaning products, etc.
The NPC is hosted by GS1 Australia on GS1net™, its data synchronisation platform used in Australia by more than 1300 companies across a number of industry sectors including Grocery, Liquor, Hardware, Automotive, General Merchandise, and others.
This platform enables the secure sharing of item master information such as product identifiers and descriptions, units of measure, package contents, product classification, pricing and related healthcare information.
State, Territory and Federal Health Departments now require suppliers to populate the National Product Catalogue with item master data for the purposes of tenders and contracts and to ensure this information is maintained up to date.
NPC Data Quality Focus
National Product Catalogue (NPC) Data Quality Initiatives
[format: pdf - date: April 2013]
Descriptions in the NPC
Supply Chain Reference Group Information Bulletin
[format: pdf - date: November 2012 - size: 173kb]
Prosthesis Rebate Codes in the NPC
[format: pdf - date: December 2012 - size: 76kb]
Downloads
National Product Catalogue
Download NPC industry brochure produced by GS1 Australia
[format: pdf - date: April 2011 - size: 253kb]
Benefits
The NPC will transform procurement in public healthcare institutions, providing significant benefits to both suppliers and purchasers.
In particular, as a single source of electronic procurement information it will benefit suppliers by:
- Creating one standard process for providing item details to all health departments
- A myriad of existing paper forms and specification sheets will be replaced by on electronic system
- Improving product visibility and reach across Australia's largest healthcare buyers
- Providing a solid basis on which to build electronic messaging systems for eProcurement
- Reducing the effort and cost involved in communicating product, price and medicines information to public health institutions
- Decreasing "out-of-stocks" and supplier capital tied up in safety stocks
- Significantly reducing the time and cost of introducing new products onto the market
- Streamlining notifications of product recalls
- Streamlining data provision processes to some regulation authorities
