UNSPSC for Australian Healthcare

Important change to the Australian healthcare organisations rely on accurate product classification as part of their procurement processes, cataloguing, spend analysis and many other elements necessary in running efficient healthcare organisations. Ensuring suppliers provide the right data to support this classification process is critical. The UNSPSC classification system has been used for many years to support this process as either the whole method or an input into the classification process.

As the products in the sector change constantly due to innovation, there is also a need for the version of the UNSPSC to evolve to support this change. The decision was therefore made to move the healthcare sector to a model of using the most up-to-date set of codes, leading to the introduction of v25 as the new preferred version. The versions will continue to be added for use over time to respond to the demand for the latest codes. 

It is important that all NPC users understand the impact is not a wholesale change to a new version, but instead the new approach is to focus on ensuring that the latest codes are available. As new versions are released in future (which is generally annually) these will continue to be added to the NPC, with processes being implemented to support suppliers in any data updates that are required.

What do suppliers need to do?

Suppliers do not need to update all their products to the new version. If the commodity code in v25 also exists in v19 and has already been provided there is no action needed.

Any new products that are added to the NPC should include the latest version, which is currently version 25 at Commodity Level instead of using version 19 as had previously been the case.

If you have codes allocated against your products that are no longer valid because they have been deprecated and replaced by new codes, you will be prompted to update them via the data quality reports. The action needed is to find the new code and add it to your products. Where possible the suggested replacements will be provided to help make the process as simple as possible.

If you had previously allocated codes that did not quite fit products, we would also encourage you to review your catalogue and update your data to make sure that the codes are correct and therefore fit for purpose.