[e-drug] Your experience and opinions on the use of barcodes

e-drug
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E-DRUG: Your experience and opinions on the use of barcodes
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Dear e-druggers,

There is increasing interest by medical stores in developing countries to
introduce barcodes to improve their warehousing activities. It is hoped that by using barcode readers at the various steps in the warehouse, there can be no more mix-up of goods, expiry-dates or batches.

This enthusiasm may be explained by the apparent ease with which the
technology is used in local supermarkets like Shoprite and it is further
encouraged by barcode system developers as well as some international
partners.

Although I'm positive towards the idea of using barcodes to identify
warehouse locations (as is currently in operation at the Medical Stores in
Zambia), I personally have grave reservations whether it is feasible and
cost-effective to introduce systems that depend on capturing barcodes on the products. Just one very practical example: Contrary to the food and beverage industry, there is no standard barcode-type in use for generic essential medicines and medical supplies. Those wishing to introduce product level barcodes will thus either need to convince and educate their suppliers to include (their specific type) of barcode on each product or else be forced to generate and attach a barcode to each item as it is received into stock.

As you gather from this introduction, I am of the opinion that product-level barcoding isn't appropriate for our settings yet... Or is it?

Please share your experience and opinions on this.

Best regards,

Ron Wehrens

--
Ron Wehrens, MSc MBA Pharmacist
Phasuma Consultancy & Training
P.O. Box 36083,
1020 MB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel + 31 (0)35 6550599
Mob +31 (0)6 4629 3590
Skype: ron.wehrens
r.wehrens@phasuma.com
www.phasuma.com

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E-DTUG: Your experience and opinions on the use of barcodes (3)
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You say
"...there is no standard barcode-type in use for generic essential
medicines"

The answer to that is easy - to create your own.

[The moderator did not find this comment very useful, but decided to post it. May be it will heat up the debate..]

Rollo Manning
PO Box 98 Parap NT 0804
Tel: 08 8942 2101 or 0411 049 872
rollom@iinet.net.au

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E-DRUG: Your experience and opinions on the use of barcodes (2)
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Ron

My experience in the Solomon Islands supports your wariness about
using barcoding solutions. The problem as you've correctly identified
relates to the standards, quality or even existence of barcodes on
products. The grocery industry has long history of barcode use and the
major retailers were in large part responsible for forcing
manufacturers to apply barcode labels and to get them right.

At least 50% of products held in the medical store in Solomon Islands
don't have barcode labels and the option of generating codes and
labels in-house would not be without risk. The incorporation of expiry
dates and batch numbers too is problematic unless the label format can
accommodate multiple sets of data - many medical products now for
example require a supplementary label for batch/expiry.

Barcoding is a wonderful tool but has a way to go in developing
countries until and unless suppliers can produce reliable labels.

Regards, Peter

Peter Laing
Solomon Islands
peteralaing@bigpond.com