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Use of appropriate technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain can help reduce costs to organizations and improve care for patients.
Use of appropriate technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain can help reduce costs to organizations and improve care for patients.
One challenge to effective supply chain management is the basic fluctuation in medication demand from day to day.
These fluctuations may lead to overpurchasing of certain products, which leads to a short term financial benefit from bulk discounts, but expose the hospital to financial risk when products become outdated or inventory sits on the shelf.
Hospitals must keep a large supply of medication on site to meet patient demand. As a general rule, most hospital pharmacists will accept inventory costs of pharmaceutical products averaging $100 to $200 worth of medication in storage per hospital bed. This general rule of inventory management highlights some of the inefficiencies associated with the traditional ordering processes, and some of the difficulties inherent in standardizing shipping and logistics functions in pharmacies.
Some of these challenges and inefficiencies include the following:
In spite of the challenges that set apart the pharmaceutical supply chain from those of other industries, there are some areas that can be improved through widespread use of existing technologies. For example:
In a survey of pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists, and health care technology providers at 38 hospital sites, approximately three-fourths (76%) of 58 professionals surveyed were aware of the procedures involved in the provision of medication within the hospital. However, a minority of professionals (21%) were aware of the processes involved in maintaining the hospital’s overall supply chain of pharmaceuticals.
Implementing demand estimation systems, digital purchase order verification systems, and RFID-based inventory management requires a greater awareness of opportunities for improving supply chain processes.
With process improvement pervading so many areas of health care, embracing flexible digital technologies and implementing the correct technologies in the right way can reduce overhead stock costs and improve product availability for patients. Ultimately, shipping and logistics is an important part of patient care. Performing improvements to shipping and logistic processes can help health organizations use resources more efficiently and subsequently care for patients more effectively.
Reference
Romero A. Managing medicines in the hospital pharmacy: Logistics inefficiencies. Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science. 2013;2:1-6.