Expert group
e-Business

To ensure seamless patient care, healthcare providers are reliant on simple procurement processes. While orders of medical consumables between pharmacies and wholesalers have primarily been pa-perless for years, 40% of orders from hospitals are still being processed by fax or telephone. Order entry is carried out in many manual stages, which makes it prone to errors and cost-intensive. This inefficiency can be tackled with comprehensive use of seamless, electronically assisted procurement processes. The comparably low amount of business transactions poses a disadvantage for the full implementation of e-Business in Swiss healthcare. Yet to keep the fixed and unit costs for the mapping of electronic processes low, our small country is dependent on standards as well as on the close cooperation of suppliers and dealers, hospitals and marketplaces. 

Who we are

The expert group e-Business comprises member companies of Swiss Medtech that provide durable and non-durable consumer goods of key importance for customers in the supply process. It is particularly aimed at employees in Management, Sales, Logistics and Digitalisation as well as at employees of trading companies. The expert group focuses on the digitalisation of procurement in healthcare. 

Who can participate

Employees of Swiss Medtech member companies who wish to promote efficient material management of medical devices (focussing on Switzerland). New members should have a direct link to e-Business in healthcare. Ideal backgrounds are SCM, EDI, Customer Service or Sales. Five years of medtech-related experience and a position in middle management or as a specialist in e-Business are desirable.

Our goals

  • Increasing efficiency regarding procurement, logistics and billing of medical consumer goods via digital concepts and IT (Electronic Data Interchange, marketplaces)

  • Establishing existing standards and creating new standards (such as GS1) in practice

  • Ensuring material supply, incl. in the context of the MDR to increase patient safety and security of supply

Our activities

  • Positioning intermediaries in material procurement
  • Distributing article master data via GDSN (Global Data Synchronisation Network) to ensure globally applicable GS1 standards regarding data exchange between trade partners
  • Establishing back-office processes of packing slip, order confirmation and invoice in practice