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Hospital Supply Chain Management Essay

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Care Healthcare Supply Chain Management

Supply Chain Management plays a vital role in our hospitals today. With the growing cost of healthcare and new technologies, it is vital for hospitals to run as efficiently as possible without jeopardizing care. To the materials manager and to the financial minds of a hospital the area of supply chain is a tedius task at best, the kind of planning, strategizing and measuring that seldom goes recognized and rewarded. The work involved with inventory control fits tightly within that description.
In many hospitals today, it is easy for inventory control to go astray and become uncontrolable. This is the case with I Care Healthcare System. Too many people with too much access to too much product …show more content…

In fact much of the time is spent making sure that the packaging and pricing are correct in the hospital system vs. the distributors system. The other issue is that many of the high ticket items (Orthopedic implant, Cardiology and Cath Lab products) do not go through the distributor and in most cases are on consignment, where it is easy to use the product and be billed for it later totally losing any control over the inventory.
Many hospitals today have upgraded to accounting, materials management systems and storage solutions, such a Lawson, Smart Stream, Par Excellence, Pixis etc., that allow easier tracking of purchases and usage. However, these systems are very expensive and in most cases still going through growing pains, they are also cost prohibitive to many hospitals around the country. For example, Lawson was traditionally an accounting and finance tool that is trying to build a platform to connect with the materials environment and although they have been somewhat successful, it is very combersome and there are continuing issues with running reports. It is also very expensive and there is a charge for connecting to each manufacturer. Pixis on the otherhand is a fairly simple system that tracks very well the usage of products being stocked in the cabinet system, but you are restricted with drawer space as to what you can stock. Also, Pixis is more of a storage and tracking solution rather

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