How to Successfully Manage Operating Room Inventory

This is the first in a series of educational videos looking at how to manage medical inventory in different settings.

This video is about how to Manage Operating Room Inventory.

Operating Room inventory is complex to manage in hospitals, health systems and ambulatory surgery centers.

This video is an educational session on the challenges of operating room inventory, looking at how to better manage medical devices and implants in the surgical setting.

We also look at the new technology that is providing a robust solution for end-to-end inventory tracking for owned stock and consignment, as well as for all items consumed at the point of care, including bill-only items.

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Managing Operating Room inventory is a complex task for healthcare providers.

In this presentation, we’ll look at why OR supply chain management is so problematic, and also look at new technology that is adding speed and accuracy to this task.

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that managing inventory in the OR setting is such a challenge.

Well, the most obvious reason is the sheer unpredictability of the operating room, you simply don’t know what type of case is coming through the doors next.

Because of this you need to be prepared for anything, so a wide range of items, types and sizes is often maintained in stock. Many of these products are high-value items, making OR inventory expensive to manage and difficult to control.

Another key factor that makes Operating Room inventory management so hard, is the fact that it’s all down to busy perioperative nurses, whose main priority is patients not products.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into these challenges.

Manage Operating Room Inventory

With a large on-hand inventory, OR nurses often struggle to manage expiry – which is often a manual task. Another common barrier is the limitations of point of use systems, which fail to record the wide variety of OR stock, sending nurses into longwinded, manual processes.

OR Revenue:

Barriers to optimized revenue include an out-of-date item master/charge master, inadequate point of use technology, and a reliance on manual data entry.

RCM and Case Reimbursement:

Incomplete or inaccurate surgical utilization data can delay or reduce OR case reimbursements. Technology is making OR revenue cycle management (RCM) more efficient.

Patient Safety:

And last, but certainly not least, patient safety in the OR is compromised without full and accurate records.

We can see that, existing systems, such as barcode scanning and manual keying in of data are not effective in the OR setting and cause nurses to spend significant time post-surgery accounting for supplies, while OR supervisors ended up having to reconcile charges in the system.

What’s needed is a solution that can achieve end-to-end tracking of every type of item – including achieving full item and charge capture at the point of care.

Complete Medical Inventory Solution for the Operating Room

The complete inventory management solution for OR needs to achieve 3 things, the tracking of stock managed using RFID, the management of items that are not RFID tagged, and the reporting of them all.

IDENTI Medical has created the next-generation of OR inventory management using a three-tiered system.

1. Advanced healthcare data-sensing hardware
2. AI cloud software that taps into a global SKU database and is fully interoperability with hospital systems.
3. Metrics, reports and data insights for enhanced inventory management and better forecast planning.

End-to-End Implant Tracking

The first line of attack to achieve item-level inventory tracking.

Total Sense is a UHF RFID smart cabinet that perpetually tracks every item and reports on inventory levels. The technology can be shared with partners such as vendors, distributors and GPOs making it ideal for pain-free consignment management, as well as local owned-stock management.

The smart cabinet can be ordered in different configurations, making it relevant for all departments, stock types and product sizes.

Inventory that’s not in the cabinet, but sits on the shelves, can also be tracked. IDENTI’s Total Sense Mobile turns OR storerooms into a virtual smart cabinet.

Using RFID tags, a mobile scanner and our AI cloud technology ensures comprehensive OR stock management for items in the cabinet or on the shelves.

Point-of-use System for Product Documentation

Snap&Go is a point of use system for documenting product usage.

Currently, existing systems over-rely on busy nurses, are too barcode-dependent, are held back by clunky software, and constrained by out-of-date catalogs.

It’s time for an upgrade.

Finally, a system specially designed for the point of care.

Snap&Go surgical documentation solution brings the barcode solution to an end and heralds a brand new way of capturing utilization data by taking a snap of product packaging.

There’s not need to scan, just snap, and go.

Snap&Go is a next-generation point of use utilization documentation tool uses image recognition technology and turns item capture into a 3 second task. It delivers automatic item identification via a globally-populated SKU database, supported by a human back-office team, ensuring that every item is identified:

• Whether it finds a match in the local item master or not
• Whether it’s a stock item or not
• Whether it’s barcoded or not

The AI system products metrics, reports and data analytics to improve healthcare management and margins.

Vital OR Data for Healthcare Management

Data is central to modern healthcare management – it’s the gas that feeds vital workflows and informs management decision-making. Snap&Go delivers solid OR utilization data that supports:

• Optimized revenue
• A reduced, yet perpetual inventory
• Enhanced patient safety

Just look at the power of 100% data collection in OR:

• 10-20% increase in reimbursement
• 70+% reduction in waste
• 97+% costing accuracy
• 30-40% reduction in nurse admin time
• 100% FDA UDI ditigal documenting compliance
• 25+% reduction in inventory on-hand

Healthcare Data Sensing Tools

IDENTI has reimagined OR data collection, giving you custom-OR data sensing tools, automated product identification via a global, virtual SKU database, and vital OR data to improve organizational improvement.

Don’t continue to struggle with inefficient inventory management system and inadequate point of use documentation tools – join the image-to-data revolution.

If you are looking to improve the efficiency, accuracy and speed of OR inventory tracking, contact us to find out about TotalSense item-level tracking and Snap&Go point of use product utilization tracking.

New technology is a gamechanger in ensuring vital OR consumption data feeds into operational workflows and internal decision-making.