What is ECHO?
ECHO stands for Extending the Collaboration of Healthcare Organisations. The ECHO initiative focuses on harmonising market strategies and data requirements across borders, and translates this into a common used datamodel.
How does ECHO work?
GS1 Member Organisations together with healthcare stakeholders align efforts and create a clear strategy in the exchange of product data via the Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN), the global standard for data exchange. The ECHO initiatives and used datamodel are now being realised by the involved countries: Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland.
The heart of ECHO: Why is it important?
The international healthcare sector is embracing many regulations and developments at the moment, and the challenge of complying with these various requirements has become evident.
Healthcare providers are under constant pressure to provide good quality care with less costs, and it is important to reduce errors and optimize processes.
Manufacturers on the other hand are faced with an avalanche of requirements from various countries with different regulations, languages and business needs. This increase of demand for data is even more complicated in the European region due to the many countries.
With help of ECHO we bring these requirements together, in order to maximise the benefits of using GDSN, the global standard for data exchange. One place from which data requirements can be communicated.