Cardinal Health Introduces Central Supply Chain Registry

DUBLIN, Ohio   Cardinal Health, Inc., a provider of products and services supporting the healthcare industry, announced the introduction of SupplyCentral, a healthcare product synchronization database. The SupplyCentral database is a central registry of medical and surgical product information that will increase the accuracy, speed and efficiency of the supply chain for Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs), hospitals, distributors and manufacturers.

Trading partners within the healthcare industry need a way to correct, synchronize and update incorrect and erroneous product data -- and the SupplyCentral database is the solution, said Dwight Winstead, president and COO of clinical technologies and services. The SupplyCentral databases ability to lower costs, increase efficiency and reduce the number of errors is a promising value proposition.

The ability to efficiently, effectively and expeditiously move healthcare products through the supply chain to the end user is an enormous challenge burdened with hidden costs. According to one recent study, 24 percent of all supply management employee time at hospital and distributor sites is spent on correcting data integrity errors.

Cardinal Healths SupplyCentral database will reduce the number of invoice errors, out-of-stock incidences, and rework errors as well as the manual resources used to correct them. Both patients and consumers benefit when products and materials are delivered faster and with fewer mistakes.

Simply stated, this database will give the entire healthcare supply chain access to an electronic library that also can publish, transmit and download standardized product information, said Charlie Burwell, senior vice president of strategic development. As a result, IDNs, distributors, suppliers and manufacturers will be able to minimize the added costs and headaches associated with supply chain errors by efficiently synchronizing healthcare product information.

Source: Cardinal Health