Surgical supply chain improvement without supporting usage data and change management process is nearly impossible - OpFlow has a solution

A recent study of 2,300 US hospitals found that there was $25.4 billion in excess annual spend on supply chain management. When compared to performers in the top quartile, that amounted to a potential savings of $11 million per year for each hospital. It’s no secret to those who work in surgical services that there is a tremendous opportunity to reduce operating room-related supply chain expenses.

Supply costs generally account for 50-60% of a hospital’s surgical services budget [1]. A significant portion of those costs are avoidable and are the result of outdated physician preference cards. In addition to the cost resulting from the waste of opened, but unused, disposable materials, there is substantial avoidable labor expense associated with returning items to inventory that were picked for the case but not needed.

“Leveraging technology and empirical data through OpFlow’s actual case-based disposable supply usage and change management process enables innovative change in the industry.”

The fundamental cause of the avoidable surgical supply chain expense is a lack of understanding related to the actual usage of these materials in the OR. Disposable supply use is not reliably captured by inventory management systems or EHRs. Commonly, the EHR relies on the supplies listed on the preference card to determine what was used, which is frequently inaccurate and may lead to complex discrepancies between billing and inventory management.

Moreover, in the absence of meaningful data, there is an inherent and deeply-ingrained resistance to change in the OR. Understandably, surgical services teams are hesitant to update preference cards without knowing exactly which supplies have been used and may be needed for a specific case and surgeon. Once empowered by actual usage data and guided by powerful analytics, it is possible to confidently apply lean principles and make the changes needed to reduce supply chain expenses.

As costs continue to rise and margins are thinned, supply chain leadership needs a way to gain visibility into supplies needed in the OR so that change can occur. Properly collected data and a proven, data-driven change management process can remedy both of these barriers to improvement of the supply chain.

OpFlow provides visibility into the actual usage data and brings forth a carefully-designed change management process needed for performance improvement and supply chain initiatives.

1. Park KW(1), Dickerson C. Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. Can efficient supply management in the operating room save millions? 2009 Apr;22(2):242-8.

UncategorizedJanuary 9, 2020