ERP Benefits and Challenges in Supply Chain of Healthcare Industry

 

Forty percent of healthcare organizations stated that they have had to cancel surgical cases because of a lack of supplies, while another 69 percent reported that they needed to delay a case because of missing supplies, according to a recent Cardinal Health survey.

For the past 15 years, the logistics function has gained a strategic place in the management of hospitals. Now also we will able to see in this pandemic situation, several strategic decisions related to logistics such as the outsourcing of certain activities in the hospital supply chain are ready to take place.

Hospital Managers have also implemented various tools and methods of lean management allowing a continuous improvement approach. Therefore, significant results were achieved in reducing errors, improving process quality and reducing wait times.

Losing track of supplies and medical tools is an unacceptable reality for healthcare organizations. Healthcare organizations should add ERP and supply chain solutions to their IT infrastructure to keep track of tools and supplies. However, adding advanced supply chain management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to health IT infrastructure can reduce costs associated with medical tools and material and increase patient satisfaction.

The management of logistics activities goes beyond traditional physical flows, and it considers other flows such as patients throughout the care chain. Patient management incorporates several multidisciplinary and interdependent medical and administrative steps that require controlled interconnection and synchronization to avoid problems with wait times, misuse of medical resources etc.

Things to know the complexity of healthcare supply chain management

Healthcare supply chain management is unique because each healthcare organization's stakeholder has their own interests to protect. Different stages in the supply chain flow may be focused on their own goal. Providers may want to use a specific product because they were trained with it, whereas hospital executives aim to purchase the most affordable quality items.

Since supply chain goals are not always aligned within an organization, the healthcare supply chain management process can be inefficient and separated.

Patients also can play a vital role in the healthcare supply chain management process. Healthcare organizations may be able to regularly order the correct sizes of gloves and keep them stocked, but some patients may need more customized medical products depending on their health status and doctor prescription.

Five challenges in Healthcare Supply Chain Management System

1. Assigning lot and serial numbers - Healthcare companies must use lot numbers, serial numbers or both for every item in the supply chain. It must be easily readable by both humans and machines to make processing transactions simpler.

2. Tracking and Tracing - Regulatory bodies need healthcare companies to trace the items and components used in products to the supplier’s source lot. Enterprise resource planning or inventory management systems must incorporate the ability to capture the serial numbers and provide fast, accurate tracking and tracing capabilities in case of a recall or quality issue.

3. Assigning unique IDs - This is the most vital part of healthcare management as that requires to identify in both human and machine-readable formats. The intention is to improve patient outcomes by ensuring that materials are properly identified and can be traced to their source and through every hand-off throughout the supply chain.

4. Monitoring expirations - Many items used in the healthcare industry have limited usage dates. Managing inventory is a complex process even without the additional dimension of expirations.

5. Achieving global visibility - The global nature of healthcare supply chains makes it more difficult to have close and trusting relationships with every supplier. However, the strict compliance rules that healthcare companies must abide by require it.

How to overcome challenges through healthcare supply chain management system

Some healthcare organizations have found success with supply chain management through cost transparency. By reducing costs and utilization data healthcare organizations can track and manage inventory more efficiently and construct more informed purchasing contracts with manufacturers.

Different automated tools can help organizations increase price analysis, such as computerized provider order entry systems, which can standardize and streamline physician orders, or Radio Frequency Identification technology that can capture volumes of data from a product’s barcode.

We as a software company created an ERP Management system where you can track entire healthcare day to day operations with 100% accurate data. We also have all hospitals departments on the same page to track entire healthcare supply chain management.

Healthcare supply chains face a multitude of challenges, but there are solutions to each issue. With diligence, careful training of suppliers, strict inventory procedures for material handlers, and careful adherence to regulatory guidelines, the issues should be manageable.