Inventory as a Tool – A Healthcare Perspective

For healthcare organizations, inventory can be an important and powerful tool for controlling effective equipment management programs and providing better access to, quality of, and utilization of medical devices.   

Accurately managed inventory can also be used for forecasting, developing budgets, performing risk analysis, risk management and mitigation, developing replacement and disposal practices, maximizing optimal safety stock inventory, and more.  The insight it provides into an organization’s financial state allows for confident business decisions that translate to savings.

As healthcare organizations face increasing pricing pressures, one area where inventory can specifically be used as a tool to uncover savings is in assessing the benefits of equipment standardization.

Using Inventory as an Assessment Tool

Medical equipment has significant impact on healthcare costs.  For healthcare providers, equipment standardization is one way they can reduce direct and indirect expenditures – and equipment inventory is a key metric to finding and realizing the financial benefits associated with standardization.

In assessing their medical equipment costs, healthcare organizations take a number of measurements into consideration; the number of SKUs on hand, cost per SKU, cost of inventory space, failure rates of equipment, use frequency of parts, variability between different pieces of equipment, cost of equipment maintenance, and the cost of training users and technical maintenance staff on using various pieces of equipment.  

Much of this information is either directly or tangentially gathered from equipment inventory, and it gives healthcare organizations real insight as to where they can streamline and standardize their operations in order to reduce costs.

The Benefits of Equipment Standardization

Equipment standardization allows organizations to realize benefits like a reduction of equipment SKUs; a need to have fewer parts on hand; a reduction in training needs; having less supporting documentation to process; simplified vendor management; and the advantage of increased bulk discounts. 

Put together, these benefits add up significant bottom line savings from reduced equipment, parts, labour, and space costs. 

How Trindent can Make It Happen

Medical equipment inventory is so much more than a list of an organization’s assets.  If properly utilized, it can provide a foundation for healthcare equipment management, which in turn can be used to find significant bottom line improvements.  This is where Trindent’s healthcare consultants can help.

With deep healthcare industry knowledge, Trindent understands its specific challenges, and can implement changes to deliver sustainable savings.  Working collaboratively with our clients, Trindent takes a detailed look at inventory points to evaluate and establish correct levels at the right locations.

Click here to find out more about how Trindent can help your healthcare organization utilize your inventory to realize the benefits of equipment standardization.