The scope of inefficiency in the medical devices market, for example, is staggering. These devices alone contribute to billions in waste annually.1 There are many other sources of waste as well, including excess inventory, product loss, expired products, and unnecessary shipping costs caused by poor inventory tracking and planning.2 As cost pressures in the healthcare industry reach new extremes, the need to eliminate waste in the supply chain is critical. Here are three opportunities to apply an IoT approach to help promote efficiency in your hospital’s supply chain:
- Develop a holistic view of your supply chain, all the way from sourcing to storage.
Opportunity #1: Leverage IoT technologies to enable cloud-based, system-wide inventory management with data analytics to connect products and processes with their true cost.
The healthcare supply chain is no longer just about manufacturing, distributing, and transporting products. In order to properly evaluate the value chain, it must be viewed holistically, encompassing both direct and indirect costs. This caliber of system-wide valuation demands data, and lots of it – data that can be collected, aggregated, visualized and acted upon.
2. Invest in technology to improve the user experience for clinical staff.
Opportunity #2: Use the IoT’s connectivity and data-sharing capabilities to free frontline staff from inventory-related burdens.
According to a recent survey, clinicians are spending more than twice as much time as they’d like to on healthcare supply chain tasks, which can cause stress and pull clinician focus away from patients.3 Fortunately, there are advanced product-tracking technologies and automated inventory management systems that can help to alleviate these stresses and allow clinicians to devote more time to patient care.
3. Adopt technologies to improve accuracy, speed, and spend.
Opportunity #3: The healthcare supply chain is a strategic asset that can yield large financial savings, and the IoT is key to propelling change.
The vast majority of hospital clinicians and department managers understand that supply chain management is critical to controlling costs.4 There’s an understanding that properly balancing inventory levels to match usage patterns, reducing and properly managing product expirations, freeing up capital, and reducing patient risk are just a few ways to improve the supply chain. Data gleaned from IoT connectivity can provide visibility across the organization to enable proper management of consignment, accurate clinical documentation, and product and workflow standardization across entire enterprises.
Learn more about how Cardinal Health can help optimize your supply chain here.
1https://www.usnews.com/news/healthcare-of-tomorrow/articles/2017-03-09/hospitals-are-wasting-billions-of-dollars-worth-of-medical-equipment
2https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180728/TRANSFORMATION02/180729935/hospital-supply-inventory-management-creating-a-cottage-industry-for-technology
3https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/healthcare-supply-chain-tasks-are-stressing-out-clinicians
4https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/supply-chain/room-for-improvement-3-key-findings-from-our-latest-supply-chain-survey.html
