Hospital Inventory Management
When you are short-staffed and the ER is busy on a Saturday night, is hospital inventory management an afterthought? If restocking your supplies depends on a worker bee finding time to fit inventory into his or her shift, either your staff is faced with the risk of shortages or you’re ordering too many supplies and have nowhere to put them. Another major concern is locating vital equipment that has been misplaced. Having enough stock on hand boils down to inventory management and sacrificing quality healthcare in the pursuit of hospital profitability is not in anyone’s best interest.
All the intricacies that go into effective inventory management can be difficult to apply in a hospital setting where you may not have someone dedicated to inventory control. After all, the primary concern is patient care and well-being even though this relies heavily on the availability of vital medications, supplies and equipment.
To further complicate inventory management of perishable pharmaceutical products, many facilities are facing shortages of important drugs thus finding themselves postponing procedures that rely on basic medications like lidocaine. Good hospital inventory management goes beyond managing inventory you know you need; it now also requires you manage viable substitutions.
Why You Need Hospital Inventory Management Software
Contrary to the retail store, where a customer will willingly await a product on backorder, a hospital cannot afford to be put in this position. The inability to provide adequate inventory risks the patient’s well-being and can result in injury and possibility even a lawsuit. Balancing fear of exposure with a tendency to over-order is often the cause of wasted, expired product and an excessive financial investment in inventory.
Luckily, the entire balancing act can be effectively managed with intelligent inventory software. The right hospital inventory software can handle all operations for equipment, medication, and supplies from the time of order from suppliers through patient billing. Having a hospital inventory system in place will make certain your facility reorders as items are consumed and replaces them before stock levels run too low. If you want to be organized and know what supplies you have on hand in an instant, you need SOS Inventory.
When all supplies and equipment are logged in your SOS account, staff will always know their location. A disorganized closet will no longer swallow up supplies only to be discovered post-expiration. Tracking down supplies is a waste of time – time that can be precious in life-saving moments.
Healthcare Inventory Management Systems Save Millions
Identifying waste, balancing inventory levels, and adjusting stock quantities will help your facility reduce unnecessary expenditure. Hospitals require a tremendous amount of inventory daily. Managing that inventory effectively can only be accomplished with hospital inventory software. Safeguarding medications that are accessed by a large crew requires ongoing monitoring, whether administered by nurses and doctors or provided through the hospital pharmacy. Some medications are prone to theft or abuse; knowing how much inventory you have and who accessed it at any time can curb theft.
But theft is not the only concern with medications; expired products can also result in significant waste. SOS Inventory can prevent such waste by tracking and tracing pharmaceuticals as they move around your hospital. All information, including expiration date, is monitored to consume inventory in the order of arrival from supplier thus prevent accumulation of expired product.
How Can SOS Inventory Help?
Medical Equipment Management: Most hospitals deal with misplaced equipment on a regular basis. Tracking down lost items wastes time and increases costs when the items are replaced. SOS Inventory provides clear visibility of locations and usage of all equipment at all times.
Pharmaceuticals: SOS Inventory provides users with lot and batch tracking to give medical staff complete control over medication distribution. Prevent waste and control misuse by logging all inventory activity.
Supplies: A hospital requires thousands of supplies to take care of patients each day. Everything from gauze pads and syringes through to bed pans must be reordered regularly to keep up with demand. Managing all these items is near impossible without robust inventory software that automates many of your processes. That is where SOS Inventory shines.
Keep costs under control and budgets in line. Hospital inventory management is challenging with all the items that need to be stocked and tracked. Give your hospital inventory a clean bill of health with SOS Inventory.
