The
hospital supply inventory managed in ORs is one of the most difficult
inventories to maintain. The
items included in the hospital supply inventory move from the shipper
to your receiving; from receiving to the floor and finally to the
individual patient use storage places. In order for these inventory
supplies to arrive when and where they will be needed they are
typically handled by many different hands. They are also
subject to expiration dates, waste and evaporation (the accounting term
for items which inexplicably drop out of inventory). When you consider
these hospital inventory supplies account for as much as 25% to 40% of
your hospital’s budget, a small amount of waste, evaporation, misplaced
items, and/or expired goods adds up quickly.As Healthcare costs continue to rise, most hospital administrators would agree they do not manage their OR inventory supplies as well as they would like and seek answers in systems, devices and processes.
The success of any of these “solutions” starts and ends with an accurate physical inventory count of the hospital's OR inventory supplies; this is where BIG Inventory's Professional Hospital Inventory Service shines. Our background is in retail physical inventories and related services as well as Healthcare. Changing the retail physical inventory industry from a financial inventory only to SKU-based and eventually UPC-based was difficult and required us to be submerged in technology based methodologies. We developed checks and balances centered on both the Information Technology and Human element and now have ported that tried and trued approach to our professional hospital inventory service--hospital OR Inventory physical counts.
