How a Warehouse Management System Can Create Value for Hospitals?

A warehouse management system can enable hospitals to create value. Hospitals like enterprises dabble with inventory of the highest and toughest possible order and since they are into the trade of securing public health it becomes all the more important for them to execute the function of inventory management with efficiency and accuracy. Hospitals deal with inventories of costly medical equipment, OTC drugs, medicines and a lot more and need to be careful in every transaction and archive the movement of these inventories from one department to another. This is the point that warehouse management systems are great at and hence there is a strong business case in favour of using warehouse systems for streamlined execution of inventory management in hospitals. In this piece we share ten valuable guidelines for enhanced efficiency in warehouse management systems usage in hospitals and the value creation paradigm. 

UNDERSTAND THE INVENTORY 

Expert inventory managers understand and regularly monitor their inventory. This includes reviewing patterns of inventory holdings, where inventory is held, trigger levels, delivery patterns, wastage rates, and usage rates.

 PROVIDE EXPERT TRAINING

Research has shown that having staff that are well trained can have an overall positive effect on inventory management and reducing wastage

SET APPROPRIATE INVENTORY LEVELS

There is a strong relationship between inventory warehouse management system efficiency and wastage. Hospitals and laboratories that hold more medical products relative to their average daily use often have higher wastage rates. The trick is to balance having sufficient inventory to meet clinical need while keeping wastage rates at a minimum. Each health provider is responsible for setting their own inventory levels and ensuring those are appropriate.

KEEP PROCEDURES SIMPLE

Simply doing a physical count of your inventory on a regular basis and setting trigger ordering levels can prevent staff from placing unnecessary orders and therefore having excess inventory. Planning ahead can also help. If possible ask hospital clinicians to provide you with details of medical product requirements in advance.

BUILD COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Having good relationships with everyone involved in the supply, handling and use of blood products can help with managing inventory. You should encourage clinicians to understand the inventory and ordering process to minimise the number of unnecessary orders that could lead to product unavailability.

Where inventory levels are running low, you should have a plan for what to do to conserve product should the need arise. Develop local policies based on warehouse systems concerning the management of contingency events. When new product enters the inventory it should be sorted to allow it to be issued on an oldest-product-first-out basis. Options to consider if you believe product is getting close to expiry might include transferring to another hospital or laboratory, rotating segregated inventories where possible and highlighting to others product that may be soon to expire.