Estimates never tell the full story. In a hospital setting, there are many moving parts, moving people, and moving pieces of inventory. If the hospital relies solely on what is remembered in the moment, inventory management will suffer, leading to a decrease in the ability to provide proper patient care.
Moving from relying on estimates to relying on inventory truth can change the efficiency, budget, and overall morale and care within a hospital.
When estimates are the sole decision-makers in a hospital’s inventory management, the hospital may face larger challenges.
Decisions Are Not Based on Reality
One significant downside of relying on estimates to manage hospital inventory is that decisions are never based on the realities of departmental needs. Estimates can only go so far in assuming what has been used, what is needed, what’s expired, and what isn’t needed.
Estimates can be brought in from multiple department heads, and it can seem that with more opinions, there is more data to base ordering on, but that is not the case, especially if you want accurate answers.
When there is no inventory system set up, such as Track, where every piece of inventory is regulated from the time it comes in to the time it is used and needs to be reordered, your teams can never be 100% certain of what they need and don’t need. Track utilizes an RFID version, so teams will know where products are at all times. This ensures that decisions are made based on reality.
Different Departments Rely on Different Numbers and Systems
When there is no single, standardized hospital inventory management system in place for all departments to follow, each department will develop its own inventory system and process to track and report inventory levels. This can seem innovative on the surface, but when those systems need to be brought together in order to place inventory orders, you are now facing a larger problem.
All of those departments’ separate systems are based on estimates and assumptions about what they have, not on facts. They might contradict each other or not make sense when brought together on an order sheet. All of this makes inventory management harder than it needs to be and can lead to under- or overordering at any time.
A Possible Delay in Patient Care
The most significant issue that arises when hospitals base inventory on estimates is that it could lead to a delay in patient care. While a secure inventory management process helps ensure budgets are followed and items are ordered only when necessary, it also ensures patient care is the utmost priority.
When estimations are the only point of data, inventory items could become expired without anyone’s knowledge, or there may not be necessary items to begin with. These outcomes will severely impact the level of patient care that you can provide to them. If appointments are made within the OR under the assumption that items are available but they are not, delays are inevitable.
A Build-Up of Expired Hospital Inventory
Estimates can lead providers to assume that items are no longer available when they actually are, or to overorder products in general, assuming it is necessary for the current order period. While both of these options can ensure that specific items are available, it will inevitably lead to these items expiring from not being used at the capacity assumed.
When there are expired items within a hospital’s inventory, that means that unnecessary funds were spent towards those items, and now those funds were lost to items that were not even used at the end of the day. Estimates directly lead to a misuse of inventory budget and a miscalculation of what the hospital needs on any given day.
Provider Burnout as They Have More on Their Docket
The idea of utilizing estimates to generate a hospital’s inventory means that providers and their departments are the main source of data collection. This also means that on top of providing care for their patients, conducting life-saving procedures, and ensuring the well-being of those they work with, providers now need to keep track of every item they use, when they used it, and how much of that item was left in inventory. That extra mental load can cause burnout.
Providers have a lot on their docket to begin with, and asking them to remember and utilize the information they may or may not get from their inventory use can be too much to ask. Mental health is vital to our hospital workers, and if there are systems that can help take responsibility off their plates, such as an improved digital inventory system, they should be implemented so they can continue giving their best to their patients.
Substantial Financial Loss From Misordering Hospital Items
A significant impact of hospitals relying on estimates rather than inventory truths is financial loss. Whether products are overordered, not used in time, or not used at all, that is all funds that could have been allocated elsewhere in the inventory budget. Estimates do not provide the full picture and, more often than not, give an incorrect one, leading to items being ordered when they are not necessary.
When this happens, hospitals face substantial financial loss. Additionally, this effect can skew budgets toward what departments deem necessary, leading to either a larger-than-necessary budget or one that is too small. It is essential that, when a hospital’s ordering habits seem random, estimates are taken out of the equation. Proper inventory-tracking procedures need to be implemented to allocate funds effectively.
Estimates are no way to run a hospital’s inventory system. They will only lead to financial loss, provider burnout, expired product, and delays in patient care. If you want to implement a more efficient inventory management system in your hospital, contact the team at Insysiv.