Do You Trust Your Inventory Counts?

Why Now is a Good Time to Conduct a Physical Inventory

January 7, 2022
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Hospital procedural spaces are constantly busy. Tasks and processes like inventory tracking can easily fall by the wayside or quickly become out of date. But having accurate inventory counts is an important step toward an efficient supply chain that benefits everyone in the health system.

Knowing How Much Product to Order Starts With Knowing How Much You Have

How much replenishment product to order is a question supply chain managers and clinicians face every day. However, knowing how much to order starts with knowing how much you have. And if you don’t know how much of a given product you have, or even if you know, but don’t fully trust the count, there is a strong tendency to be on the safe side and over order. Over ordering then creates its own challenges, resulting in wasted inventory and excess cost.

 

“If a clinician or supply chain professional doesn’t have full confidence that the inventory counts are correct, they err on the side of caution and order more product than they really need,” said Angela McNally, Vice President of Services at Owens & Minor. “The last thing a clinician wants is to run out of product just when the surgeon needs it. So when they go to re-order product and don’t have an accurate count of what is on hand, they will over order what they really need,” she continued.

Resetting Inventory Counts With a Physical Inventory

How can a procedural area like an OR get an accurate count of inventory on hand? One way is a physical inventory. A physical inventory is not designed to tell you how much product you need to order; it’s designed to tell you how much product you have. For instance, a physical inventory of the OR suite will count product not only in the main storage area but also count product in the actual ORs and even the hallways ringing the suite, all in order to give you an accurate count as possible. It’s meant to provide you “inventory assurance” via a reset of your counts. After conducting a physical inventory, you can proceed with your ordering process with full confidence that you’ll be ordering only what you truly need.

Using a Third Party To Conduct a Physical Inventory

How much replenishment product to order is a question supply chain managers and clinicians face every day. However, knowing how much to order starts with knowing how much you have. And if you don’t know how much of a given product you have, or even if you know, but don’t fully trust the count, there is a strong tendency to be on the safe side and over order. Over ordering then creates its own challenges, resulting in wasted inventory and excess cost.

If a hospital department decides to do a physical inventory, the question they are faced with next, is who should conduct it, hospital staff or a third party? “Clinicians really don’t like to do a physical inventory. They don’t want to be counting boxes of product, they want to be treating patients,” said McNally. “Usually hospitals have to do a physical inventory over a weekend and that’s expensive. Plus, clinicians aren’t trained in conducting a physical inventory. Mistakes will inevitably happen.”

That’s why many hospitals are turning to a third party, like Owens & Minor, to conduct a physical inventory. “It’s a lot easer for the hospital to just have a third party do the physical. The hospital doesn’t have to devote staff time to a physical inventory and because they are specially trained to conduct such an inventory there are far fewer mistakes than if a hospital did it themselves,” said McNally.

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “garbage in, garbage out.” That saying applies to healthcare and supply chains as well. If you’re inventory counts are wrong, any decision you make based on those counts, such as how much product to re-order, is going to be wrong as well. And the more decisions you make based on incorrect data, the more the inventory piles up. The way to rectify that so that you are making the right decisions is to re-set your inventory counts with a physical inventory, giving you the assurance going forward that you are making the right decisions based on the right data.

Physical Inventory and Patient Safety

A physical inventory will pull expired products from your shelves, ensuring they aren’t used on patients and enhancing patient safety.

Physical Inventory

Owens & Minor Physical Inventory provides an accurate, cost-effective alternative to completing a physical inventory. Our experts work on-site to give you detailed information on your existing inventory and identify ways to improve how you manage, store and order it. To find out more, simply fill out the form.

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