Digitisation of Belgian health care increases

Erembodegem, 22 June 2010

A group of Belgian hospitals, the 6 largest medicine wholesalers and almost 30 producers of medicines and medical equipment have reached 10,000 exchanged electronic documents per month. Electronic document exchange is growing in this sector because it leads to significant savings.

The non-profit organisation e-Health was set up in 2004 to promote and simplify e-commerce in the Belgian healthcare sector. It now groups together 48 pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of medical equipment.

29 of these 48 manufacturers currently receive orders from wholesalers and hospitals electronically in the form of electronic ORDER messages. 10 of the 29 also exchange electronic receipt confirmation messages (ORDER RESPONS), send messages (DESADV), invoices (INVOIC) and price lists (PRICAT). Six large pharmaceutical distributors – Alpha Répartition, Aprophar, Cerp, Febelco, Multipharma and Pharma Belgium – exchange electronic documents with their suppliers.

Snowball effect
The number of documents exchanged will increase further when other hospital groups join e-Health. Hospitals that work with the firms Medsoc, Infohos and Partezis for their orders are planning to do so soon. This concerns half of all 265 Belgian hospitals. e-Health is expecting a snowball effect as more and more hospitals join.

Every hospital sends some 25,000 orders for medicines and medical equipment every year. Together with the incoming invoices, this means exchanging 50,000 documents with suppliers.

Collaboration with Certipost e-Health uses CertiONE for secure electronic orders, receipt confirmations, shipping notes, invoices and price lists. This Certipost communication platform provides the interface between the various supplier and client computer systems. Certipost also provides a digital invoice archive.

Electronic document exchange has numerous benefits. The order and invoice cycle runs more quickly, for example. Hospitals are better informed thanks to clear, up-to-date lists (PRICAT) with descriptions and codes for products, quantities per pack and prices. Hospitals can also exchange electronic documents immediately with over 85,000 companies from other sectors that use CertiONE, including retail, recruitment and public utility companies.

More information at www.e-health-org.be

Note to the editor: if you would like any further information about a hospital, producer of medicines or medical equipment, pharmaceutical distributor, Certipost or a representative of the e-Health association, please do not hesitate to contact Katrien Busschaert or Bart Inslegers (contact details below).

Contact details for journalists:
Certipost
Katrien Busschaert, Head of Marketing
Ninovesteenweg 196, B-9320 Erembodegem (Aalst)
T: +32 (0)53 60 11 34
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Quadrant Communications
Bart Inslegers
Marie Popelinkaai 3 bus 1, B-9050 Ghent (Ledeberg)
T: +32 (0)9 210 5358
M: +32 (0)472 480 186
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