Summary
Objectives This paper is a survey on the problem of traceability in healthcare. Traceability
covers many different aspects and its understanding varies among different players.
In supply chains and retails, traceability usually covers aspects pertaining to logistics.
The challenge is to keep trace of objects manufactured, to track their locations in
a production and distribution processes. In food industry, traceability has received
a lot of attention because of public health problems related to infectious diseases.
For instance, in Europe, the challenge of traceability has been to build the tracking
of meat, from the living animal to the shell. In the health sector, traceability has
mostly been involved in patient safety around human products such as blood derivates
contaminants or implanted devices and prosthesis such as mammary implants. There are
growing interests involving traceability in health related to drug safety, including
the problem of counterfeited drugs, and to privacy. Traceability is also increasingly
seen as a mean to improve efficiency of the logistics of care and a way to better
understand costs and usage of resources.
Methods This survey is reviewing the literature and proposes a discussion based on the real
use and needs of traceability in a large teaching hospital.
Results and Conclusion Traceability in healthcare is at the crossroads of numerous needs. It is therefore
of particular complexity and raises many new challenges. Identification management
and entity tracking, from serialization of consumers’ good production in the supply
chains, to the identification of actors, patients, care providers, locations and processes
is a huge effort, tackling economical, political, ethical and technical challenges.
New requirements are needed, not usually met in the supply chain, such as serialization
and persistence in time. New problems arise, such as privacy and legal frameworks.
There are growing needs to increase traceability for drug products, related to drug
safety, counterfeited drugs, and to privacy. Technical problems around reliability,
robustness and efficiency of carriers are still to be resolved. There is a lot at
stakes. Traceability is a major aspect of the future in healthcare and requires the
attention of the community of medical informatics.
Keywords Traceability - identification management - logistics - supply chain - EPC - GS1
