Educate: Supply chain personnel might be following the UDI developments, but not everyone else is. Conway said once you've ID'd your stakeholders, it's important to educate them on all the associated legislation and regulations. Plus, it's critical that they be aware of not just the what, but the why. "If they don't see the value that it has, then it will look like another regulation, as opposed to something that will lower costs and improve efficacy," Conway said.

Learn how to share: Hospitals or clinics will need to get usable information from the UDI and figure out how to share it across systems: from supply chain software to financial programs, from implant logs recorded by circulating nurses to clinical systems. "How do I internally, within my four walls, share this information? And ideally, how do I share information with my suppliers?" Conway asked.

Scan it: According to the new rules, FDA requires UDIs to be both human ("plain text") and machine-readable. But if you want them read by machines, you'll need to purchase the machines that can do it. "Do you need to be invested in some kind of point-of-use capture technologies? It really depends," Conway said. Some hospitals are highly automated, and others are still very manual. For implants, for instance, the vast majority of sites still capture supply usage information during procedures on paper logs, she said. But digital capture, grabbing the info electronically at point of use and then possibly even incorporating it into the EMR, could let providers get the most out of the process. That's something, by the way, that has never really happened with the medication bar code system. Even though it took effect in 2006, today only 40 percent of hospitals are fully using bar codes, Conway said. "They are not achieving its full potential."


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