Health products navigate through several supply chain entities and processes as they travel from manufacturers to patients and consumers. It is important for all supply chain processes and partners to uniformly identify health products for interdependent transactions to work seamlessly. For e.g., the country's central warehouse will need significant manual effort to process receipt of products from a manufacturer if the identifying information differs from what the manufacturer utilizes. Uniform and standard product information builds trust among the supply chain partners. By matching standardized information with physical products supply chain partners can validate the source of health products. Most importantly accurate, reliable and consistent product information helps patients and consumers verify the authenticity of products and use them with confidence.
WHO, with support from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has drafted a handbook to provide guidance to countries on implementing standardized product master data management. This handbook primarily focuses on outlining the stepwise approach that countries can adopt.
WHO is seeking feedback on the draft handbook from experts in the public health supply chain and digitalization community, funders, implementers, academia, industry and product developers and others involved in the public health supply chain system efforts. Comments made during this public consultation will contribute to the finalization of the handbook.
We would like to receive your overall comments on what the draft handbook does well and less well at the moment, as well as comments on the sections of the document and line by line if desired. Please use the online form accessible through the following link to provide inputs.
DEADLINE for the submission of comments is 20th September 2024.
Please note we are providing a Word file of the full list of questions to help you plan your online submission – DO NOT make a submission using the word file, the submission should be through the online form. Wherever possible, please coordinate one submission per department or per institution using the word file to collate input into consolidated submissions through the online form.