Improving Inventory Management

Improving Inventory

Management

Information Systems Optimization, Process Improvement and

Quality Control Methodologies

Du Nguyen

Ashley Benedict

Shands HealthCare

Shands at University of Florida

z

z

z

Located in Gainesville, Florida

570-bed academic tertiary care hospital

142 intensive care beds

1

Background

z

z

z

z

z

In 2002, Shands at UF implemented an electronic

scanning and inventory management system.

New system keeps an accurate on-hand inventory

count and allows for automatic notification of critical

supply outages.

System automatically charges patients for supplies

used.

Eliminated manual ¡°piggy back¡± product sticker

process.

Nursing¡¯s buy-in was crucial.

Initial Nursing Buy-In and Utilization Agreement

z

z

z

Prior to system implementation, Nursing agreed that

they would comply by scanning all patient chargeable

and critical supplies.

Chargeable supplies include approximately 800

different medical supplies.

Critical supplies are medical supplies that individual

Nursing units identified as being critical or necessary to

their patient population.

¨C Nursing determines each item¡¯s critical replenishment point.

2

How the Electronic Inventory Management System

Works

z

z

z

z

z

The electronic system is interfaced with both the

hospital¡¯s patient billing system and the offsite

warehouse¡¯s inventory distribution system.

When a chargeable item is correctly scanned, the item

is charged to a patient¡¯s account and also deducted

from the current inventory level.

When a critical item is correctly scanned, the item is

deducted from the current inventory level.

Once a critical supply reaches its replenishment point,

the system alerts the CDC to restock.

The critical supplies are brought up to the appropriate

Nursing unit.

Electronic Inventory System and Daily Counting and

Stocking of Supplies

z

z

z

Counting of supplies occurs between 9 AM and 2 PM.

Inaccurate inventory levels in system are corrected by

counter.

Once count is completed for a particular unit, a

discrepancy report is generated for chargeable

supplies.

¨C Report lists discrepancies between inventory level in system

and count.

z

z

z

z

Simultaneously, order is sent to offsite distribution

warehouse.

Warehouse fills all orders.

Warehouse delivers supplies to hospital at 6 PM, 8 PM,

and 10 PM.

CDC staff stock supplies in the clean holding rooms

between 6 PM - 6 AM.

3

Initial Problem

z

z

Low scanning compliance throughout the hospital.

SICU and CICU has the highest utilization of supplies

¨C In December 2003, SICU and CICU¡¯s cost of medical supplies

not captured were $24,824 and $16,517 respectively.

¨C These two units accounted for 38% of the total cost of medical

supplies not captured for December.

z

Initial blame for poor scanning compliance was placed

throughout the supply chain.

Multi-Departmental Team Sets Objectives

z

The newly formed team consisted of representatives

from four different departments

¨C

¨C

¨C

¨C

SICU

CICU

Materials Management¡¯s Central Distribution Center (CDC)

Management Engineering

4

Project Objectives

z

z

z

Determine causes for low scanning compliance and low

utilization of the current scanning and inventory

management system.

Recommend information systems, process flow, and

quality control improvements to increase the scanning

compliance and maintain accurate inventory levels on

CDC stocked supplies.

Estimate financial impact of improvements.

Recommendations & Impact

5

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download