On 9 July 2024, WHO announced the launch of the first global open-access platform for medical devices: MeDevIS. MeDevIS references two international naming systems for medical devices – the European Medical Device Nomenclature (EMDN), mostly used in European countries for registration in the European database, and the Global Medical Device Nomenclature (GMDN) used in regulatory agencies in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the USA and other Member States. The naming systems include coding and definitions and can be used in any country to facilitate registration for regulatory approval, procurement and supply, inventories in health facilities, tracking and pricing.
MeDevIS is an attempt to support governments to make access to information easier amidst the multiple existing sources of information. The platform gathers data and allows users to check which device they require, the scope and required infrastructure and more. MeDevIS also tries to standardise the names of devices, referencing two international naming systems.
The MeDevIS platform currently includes 2.301 devices – see the exported information including most granular (lowest level) EMDN and GMDN codes/terms assigned. The intention is to add more devices in the future to reach 3.000 devices by the end of this year. The initial mapping of the codes/terms to the different devices was done by GMDN in the framework of a service agreement between GMDN and WHO which is only valid until the end of 2024. The long-term maintenance of the codes/terms assignment is not yet solved. Via a license agreement, WHO purchased 3.000 codes/terms from GMDN (out of the existing ~25.000) that they could publicly display at the MeDevIS platform – licensing details explained here.
Scope of MeDevIS is limited to the WHO selected medical devices (displaying their terms, codes and definitions):
- WHO model list of Essential Diagnostic List (in vitro diagnostics)
- WHO Priority Medical Devices lists, other associated subsets
