Managing Healthcare Sector Requirements in the NPC
Ensuring sector governance and ongoing improvements
The National Product Catalogue (NPC) was developed for the Australian healthcare sector as part of the National eHealth Transition Authority (NeHTA) Supply Chain program to address the need for improvements to product data across Australian healthcare in order to support the increasingly digitised processes. The NPC is hosted on behalf of Australian healthcare by GS1 Australia, with ongoing governance provided via an industry Advisory Group made up of stakeholders from across the sector including government, public and private health, manufacturers, sponsors, distributors and wholesalers of regulated healthcare products.
Healthcare NPC Advisory Group
The Healthcare NPC Advisory Group provides the key advisory and governance group to ensure that the National Product Catalogue reflects the needs of the Australian healthcare sector. It contains representation from key stakeholders within the user community – Government, Public Health, Private Health, Pharmacy Wholesale, Distributors and Suppliers of Medical devices, Invitro Diagnostic and Medicines products.
For more information about this group:
Triennial Data Set Review process
As part of the agreement with NeHTA (and her replacement organisation Australian Digital Health Agency), GS1 Australia facilitates a triennial dataset review process with sector stakeholders to ensure that the requirements within the NPC are meeting the sectors needs and that all data elements are in fact being used by the community. Combined with the ongoing enhancements and sector governance, this process ensures that the requirements which have always been defined by the Australian healthcare sector as a whole continue to reflect their ever-changing needs.
For more information about this process:
Suggested enhancements
Members of the NPC user community can suggest enhancements, request changes to the dataset or raise topics that should be discussed within the Healthcare NPC Advisory Group. Any suggestions then follow a process to scope, understand any process changes or technical solutions, ascertain whether there is an existing solution available within the NPC or GDSN and then present the request and further details to the Healthcare NPC Advisory Group for them to review and decide on whether to make the change at a whole of sector level.
Contact the Healthcare Team to request NPC enhancement