GS1 Canada’s Basic Store Checkout Product Recall Safeguard Featured by the Country’s Largest Daily Newspaper — Will “High-Tech Healthcare” Ever Get This?

Dana Flavelle, writing for the Toronto Star has brought mainstream media attention to GS1 Canada’s roll out of a solution that lets consumers learn of product recalls at the store checkout. The story carries the headline, “Product recalls soon to be listed at checkout.”  

GS1-driven Fresh Produce Traceability for Small Operations Made Easier?

One of the big worries about the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, which will mandate that food be traceable, has been that while large fresh produce organizations should find it relatively easy and affordable to implement and use, small growers will find compliance and the economics of it overwhelming.  

FDA’s Jay Crowley to give UDI Keynote at Upcoming Virtual Trade Show

“The Upside of a Unique Device Identification (UDI) Mandate” is the topic of an online keynote speech that will be given by Jay Crowley, senior advisor for patient safety, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on December 2 as part of the Track & Trace Virtual Trade Show. 

GS1 Canada’s Product Recall Service Gets a More Thorough Review

The newly announced  GS1 Canada Product Recall service has been mentioned here previously, but not to the comprehensive depth you’ll find in this report by Steve Banker writing for Logistics Viewpoints. He provides answers to these following questions: Who are the players? What are the benefits? Hoes does this work? What does it cost?

AP Story Slams Lack of Medical Device Tracking; FDA’s UDI Labeling Gets Brief Mention As Answer

The Associated Press put out a story today that’s getting a lot of traction and that’s good because this report, entitled “US has no good system to track medical implants” is bound to get a lot of average people interested very quickly in what needs to happen. It also might get a lot of the [...]

GS1 to be the Standard for UDI in China

Big news: In an email today from John Roberts, Director, GS1 Healthcare US, we’re being informed that at a recent seminar in China conducted by AdvaMed, which is a major association of advanced medical technology producers, officials representing the China State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) said they plan to follow the  

GS1 Australia and Victoria University Piloting Mobile App for Diet

One of the questions some people have these days when it comes to GS1 — and the lists of attributes you can pull from the GDSN on anything that is GS1 coded — is, “What in the world are we going to do with all the additional data we’re able to get?” Answers to that [...]

GS1 US Traceability Implementation Guide Now Available

You may see this at first as just a local US story

Drugs with ‘Made in India’ Label In Nigeria May Have Come from China

Okay, we continue to see bad actors in the supply chain and they continue to be . . .

Strong Food Safety Bill Working its Way Through Congress

File this under, ‘It’s about time!” The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that will require more food safety measures. It will give more power to the FDA in demanding recalls and creating a better product tracing

Findings of EU Pharma Traceability Pilot Published

We’ve covered this topic earlier but today’s news is that pilot organizers and participants have published their findings, recommendations and conclusions in the project’s Evaluation Report. The news release about this is here. A link to the complete recommendations document is here. The bottom line is: The project team found that full supply chain traceability systems [...]

Will Whole-Chain Traceability Pay For Itself and Then Some?

Many return on investment calculations are easy. Most are not in my experience and you end up in the world of “soft” dollars (i.e., dollars you can’t actually put in the bank).

Henry Ford Hospital Solves Specimen Management with Barcode Solution

Henry Ford Hospital employs more than 21,500 medical, administrative, and support staff. It has 3 million patient visits and performs nearly 50,000 surgeries  . . . and does nearly 6.8 million lab tests. Each year.

GS1 Healthcare Blood Derivatives Work Group Spotlighting Relabeling Dangers

This is to bring to your attention a GSMP (Global

U.S. Government’s New Food Safety Panel Sets New Rules: Trace and Track

New food safety standards set by a panel established by President Barack Obama will be implemented by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Agriculture Department working together. This news comes from this Associated Press (AP) report by Mary Clare Jalonick.

GS1 in Collaboration with European Supply Chain Institute to Track and Manage Carbon Emissions

Here’s an unusual, but very timely, application of GS1 standards:

GTIN ROI, Urgency, Affordability and Need Questioned by Retailer

Conceptually, it is hard to argue against a global product marking standard understood by all. But when it comes down to the level of practical implementation, there can be significant implications. In this posting by Tom Karst on The Packer site, an anonymous retailer’s comments about GTIN adoption raise some serious concerns.

GS1 Hong Kong Launches Consumer Product Authentication Solution

If and when you first read this InfoWorld aticle by Carol Ko entitled ‘HK launches measures against counterfeit products,’ you may ask

GS1 UK Hires IBM for Grocery-Focused Data Crunch Project

This just in… This IBM press release out of Armonk, NY, this morning confirms that GS1 UK has engaged IBM to help find and fix supply chain data gaps

GS1 Healthcare US Director Featured in Update on Status of Drug Tracking

Writing for Modern Medicine, contributing editor Christine Blank filed a story late last week carrying the headline, “Pharma industry expands electronic tracking of drugs.”