Is your hospital’s "alphabet soup" of data standards driving efficiency or draining your bottom line?

In 2026, the gap between high-performing supply chains and those struggling with manual workarounds is defined by data integrity. With U.S. hospitals facing an average of $12.1 million in unnecessary supply expenses annually, the alignment of GTIN, UNSPSC, HCPCS, and GMDN has moved from a back-office IT task to a top-tier financial imperative.

When these four codes live in a single, governed record, the results are transformative: barcode scanning works at the point of care, category spend becomes visible, and claim denials drop. In this guide, we break down how these standards work together to create a "shared language" for products, helping your team move from managing data to managing care.

Is your hospital’s supply chain built for resilience or just reaction?

When backorders and recalls hit, the difference between chaos and continuity lies in a single data point: a trusted substitute. Research shows that over 90% of hospitals must identify alternative therapies to manage shortages, yet 80% find this process "extremely challenging." These manual workarounds don't just increase clinical risk, they cost U.S. hospitals hundreds of millions in labor every year.

If you move a messy item master into a new cloud ERP, you aren't upgrading you’re just digitizing your problems. As healthcare organizations consolidate platforms in 2026, the stakes for data migration have never been higher. Research shows that 83% of data migrations fail or exceed their budgets, and in a hospital setting, bad data doesn't just break a spreadsheet: it breaks point-of-use scanning, halts billing, and creates clinical workarounds.

In this post, we explore why new cloud ERPs like Oracle and Workday are "less forgiving" than legacy systems and why defining your Target Data Model is the first step toward a successful launch. From resolving thousands of hidden duplicates to enriching records with HCPCS and GMDN codes before cutover, learn how to turn your ERP migration into a strategic reset for your entire supply chain.

Symmetric Health Solutions provides this level of intelligence by integrating enriched Country of Origin and tariff data directly into hospital workflows. The platform verifies CoO through FDA registrations and manufacturer label images. By utilizing Symmetric, health systems can model potential tariff impacts across tens of millions of dollars in spend and identify equivalent substitutes for critical items. This approach transforms the supply chain from a reactive department into a proactive arm of hospital operations, ensuring that care remains uninterrupted regardless of global disturbances.