Tag: modern healthcare

Global Healthcare Conference

Healthcare management from the private market and government departments will discuss improvement of global efforts to implement GS1 Standards that improve individual safety, provide chain security and efficiency during the International GS1 Healthcare Conference going on in San Francisco, Oct 1-3, 2013, at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District. Speakers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), California Board of Pharmacy, McKesson, Johnson & Johnson, Mercy, Pfizer and Premier will discuss best methods for applying GS1 Standards in healthcare.

More than 250 members from medical centers, producers, providers, market companies, government and regulating companies from 25 countries are expected to attend the conference. The three-day conference, designed “GS1 Standards in Action,” is organized by GS1 Healthcare US, an industry standards team targeted on driving the execution of GS1 Standards in the United States. “With individual safety at stake, market and government authorities globally are in lock-step to create techniques that will enable healthcare members to take better charge of the product information that flows throughout the supply chain, both locally and worldwide,” said Eileen Pheney, vice chairman of healthcare, GS1 US. “The conference offers global healthcare supply chain professionals understanding about standards execution techniques and improvement as well as market and regulating improvements in automatic recognition, traceability and information synchronization.”

Speakers represent multiple facets of the international healthcare supply chain, hailing from government departments, regulating bodies, medical industry companies, U.S. team purchasing companies, medical centers, producers, providers and retailers. Features include:

  • An opening plenary period targeted on unique device identification (UDI) with speakers from the U.S. FDA, the Japanese people Ministry for Health Welfare  and Labor and others.
  • A period targeted on medical center execution of GS1 Standards, with demonstrations by providers such as Whim (U.S.) and Hospital Aleman (Argentina).
  • Presentations by international companies and regulating companies, such as the World Customs Organization and California Board of Pharmacy.
  • Perspectives from providers, such as Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and McKesson.
  • Closing keynote about bedside scanning by Mark Neuenschwander, an expert in drug providing automated and bar code point-of-care systems.

Healthcare and Us

You may have already read or heard about Steven Brill’s outstanding, long article in Time magazine, known as “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us.” If you think it does not concern you, do not be so sure. Put simply, Brill says, these expenses tell us there is no free market in our healthcare system, that healthcare facilities set their rates knowing that someone in pain or in fear for his or her life is not going to ask to see the price list first before going to some test or treatment. It’s no wonder that 60 percent of Americans who declare personal bankruptcy each year do so because of healthcare expenses.

Of course, if you have Insurance policy or costly health insurance coverage, your expenses are going to be reduced, since healthcare facilities are compelled to give you a lower cost and insurance protection providers themselves are able to settle much affordable expenses for services. In any case, drug companies, medical device makers, healthcare facilities, and laboratories are confident of profit; it just relies upon how big and that is really what all those who want to take the government out of healthcare are shouting about. They want no constraints placed on earnings of healthcare market, or for that matter, anywhere else.

Today, when the gaining of wealth, quickly and in considerable volumes, is popular above any other individual effort, every medical emergency or disastrous sickness is seen as a chance of some to enrich themselves beyond their wildest goals. It’s no wonder that our healthcare system is so much more costly than that of every other designed nation in the world, where the expenses are not only much reduced, but people also live longer than we do. As opposed to us, other nations have the unusual idea that revenue has no place in any scenario in which the primary decencies that people owe to one another ought to be the first concern, and for that reason control the cost of life saving medication and functions. In short, they are less voracious than we are and far more humane.