Inventory Management In Hospital Performance

“Inventory management is one of the key factors for improving performance of any unit”

Keeping precise and updated inventory is the most crucial task for any hospital. Too much inventory can reduce profits and less inventory leads to complications. The decision factor for proper management depends upon the demand and usage of the products.

As medicines and other surgical equipment are the most used products in a hospital, every hospital must always maintain a good stock of lifesaving machines, injections and disposable surgical items like syringes, masks, gloves and more.

The better this balance is done, the better the efficiency of the hospital management.

The common challenges faced by a hospital are shortage of medicines and surgical equipment, overstocking, tracking expiry dates of medicine in stock, arranging and sorting stock and many more. Here are some insights that can help to move out from these problems

Software system for inventory

An inventory management software is one of the solution for all requirements of hospitals. A various online software is there which runs on various platforms. Some of the recent inventory apps are accessible even on androids

It can provide easy tracking of stock status and instantly generate bills.

Segregation approach

Material can be categorized under three heads i.e. vital, essential and desirable. Those items whose absence for a very short duration will stop work are called vital. Essential items are those whose absence cannot be tolerated for more than a day while desirable items are definitely needed but with their absence, the work can continue. Sometimes patient’s condition is so severe that absence of certain vital drug can cause death of the patient. Such a tragedy can be avoided by making a list of vital drugs and placing them together on one shelf and report every time when drug is issued. If demand of vital drugs is high, then managing on daily basis will be useful. Many hospitals are following this approach in present scenario.

Educating patients in case of drugs

Very often patients take drug in a wrong way. They either reduce the dosage to make treatment last longer or increase it for a quicker cure. Patients on long courses of treatment often stop taking medicine in the mid-way. The former results in wastage of drugs and later results in expiry of drugs with shorter life span. The reason behind this behavior is lack of knowledge of action of drugs in body. As the result they too suffer as it took a way longer time to recover from the disease.

Frequently analyze usage and order frequency

For effective hospital inventory management, it is important to have data on ordered stock and consumed stock. If the numbers don’t match, then there is possibility of excess or shortage. Making periodic adjustments would be the best practice to avoid such problems. This prevents the chances of non-availability of drugs and equipment which can hinder the usefulness of hospital system.