Healthcare Item Data Lake

An industry initiative supported by GS1 Australia
Improving access to master product data 

What is the Healthcare Item Data Lake?

The Healthcare Item Data Lake is specifically designed to improve access to product data for the Healthcare sector that is published within the National Product Catalogue. 

The Healthcare Item Data Lake will allow all publicly available product records to be searchable and accessible to all recipients who subscribe to this new form of access within the NPC, removing the limitation of trading partners only having access to those products published directly to them.

How will the Healthcare Item Data Lake help Healthcare Providers?

  • Single point access to more products: Access the most complete record of all healthcare products that meet your needs. Not limited by contracts or existing trading relationships.
  • Improved sourcing of products: Provides visibility of available products within a searchable ‘data lake’ enabling you to find all products that meet your criteria across more suppliers.
  • No limit on data requests or end points: Enables less centralised access to product data for organisations with multiple systems requiring product data. 
  • Flexible access: Data is accessible using Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) allowing for flexible, scalable search criteria to be used dynamically to meet business needs. Data content can then be delivered to other internal systems such as a UI, MS Excel or directly to your database/s– so the value and power of this data is its use within the organisation.
  • Automate access to data: Allowing product data to be accessed dynamically, product information can be accessed easily using simple look-up keys. For example, a product could be scanned in theatre or pharmacy and return product data needed to set-up in an internal ‘catalogue’. 
  • Supplier/Sponsor data ownership: As with all data within the NPC, the data in the Healthcare Item Data Lake is managed by the supplier/product sponsor. 
  • Traditional NPC functionality remains: For those instances where private data such as pricing is required the traditional ability to control this data from one company to another remains in the NPC. For more information contact the NPC Customer Support team.

How will Healthcare Item Data Lake help product suppliers?

  • Maximum visibility for your products: Expand access to your item data across the widest audience with existing and potential trading partners.
  • Maximum value from your NPC investment: No limitations to who can see your product data, whilst maintaining important security controls.
  • Data Requirements consistent with the local industry: No special activities required to make data available.
  • Simplify Publication of data: where only item data is required by your trading partners, you may only need to publish via the Healthcare Item Data Lake.

Some frequently asked questions

To help answer some common questions on how the Healthcare Item Data Lake works and its benefits, we have compiled some FAQs.

How can I be part of the Healthcare Item Data Lake journey?

  • The Healthcare Item Data Lake is available for supplier publication. All healthcare suppliers should be publishing all products to the Healthcare Item Data Lake (Recipient GLN 9312345550425).
  • The Healthcare Item Data Lake will be available to all healthcare data recipients. Access for individual recipients is enabled via request. 

Who can assist me to find our if this journey will add value for me?

Visit GS1 customer support