Posted by Carola Endicott on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 @ 04:38 AM
At WaveMark we have come across many examples of inventory and supply chain systems in healthcare which require a person to count products by hand. The goal of these manual counts is to determine the daily requisitions for cycle counts or for an annual physical count. In our earliest days back in 2005 we worked with a customer in a Cath Lab in Utica, NY where we validated the ability of an RFID-enabled cabinet to accurately count its contents. We printed out a report generated by the cabinet and then the two of us proceeded to count the entire contents of the cabinet - about 200 medical supplies - coronary stents and balloons. Every week we thought we had found an error in the cabinet. And every week, we found both of us were wrong. We recounted and finally one after another, we matched the automated count. Besides providing statistical validation of the ability of RFID tags to be read by a specially outfitted cabinet, this also provided a window into an area for enormous improvement opportunity. That lab went from one RFID-enabled cabinet to 10 in order to expand this capability to all of their high value products and they went from spending 2 hours a day compiling their order to 15 minutes.
Since that time, we have accumulated many stories of humans who can't count accurately, or if they do , take a long time to do so. In one busy Cath Lab in Iowa we found that they were spending an hour and a half every morning counting stents and balloons on hand in order to place an order into their Materials system. This cumbersome system was very time consuming and error-prone because a human being was doing something humans aren't good at - counting. The time and accuracy gained from RFID-enabled cabinets allowed them to reduce their "just-in-time" stock and spend valuable human beings' energy on activities more suited to their natural talents.
In another example, the WaveMark inventory management software powered by the cabinets reduced the daily counting chore to the point where the inventory person was able to take on inventory duties for an additional department, work previously done by a nurse who spent half his time counting and ordering. By allowing the nurse to go back into the procedures where he was most valuable, the hospital was able to save money and increase employee satisfaction.
We are fortunate to live in a time when technology takes on the chores that are tedious, leaving more time for human beings to focus on activities that are more interesting, valuable, and, even sometimes, fun.
This is only a small part of one Cath Lab's inventory. This photo represents $500,000 in inventory. RFID enabled cabinets provide accuracy and peace of mind.
Posted by Colleen Terry on Mon, Nov 23, 2009 @ 10:29 AM
Please subscribe to our blog by filling in the form to the right. Once you subscribe, you will automatically receive our posts as they are launched.