National Product Catalogue Overview

The National Product Catalogue (NPC) is a central repository of product and pricing data published by suppliers for medical devices, medicines and medical consumables published by commercial suppliers. All health departments are committed to the use of the NPC and the population of the NPC is a requirement of all health jurisdictions.

The NPC also provides all products with a unique identifier, the Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN), a globally recognised standard.

The NPC is hosted on the GS1 platform (GS1net) run by GS1 Australia, a not-fo- profit organisation that locally administers a global multi-industry system of product identification and communication for products, services, assets and locations.

The NPC will provide the following key benefits, significantly increasing supply chain efficiency, both financially and clinically, throughout the Australian healthcare sector.

Other key benefits to be derived from the NPC include:

• Interoperability
• Electronic trading
• Reducing the impact of adverse patient outcomes through the correct identification of medications and medical products
• Efficient product tracking leading to prompt product recalls, tracking of out-of-date stock and restocking of missing or low stock
• Improved process and supply chain management – correct/add data to the NPC, all buyers receive the changes
• Catalogue data synchronisation
• Business Intelligence identifiers.