The vast majority of healthcare pros say that dealing with product interferes with hospital work. But here’s the thing: it is hospital work.
It’s no secret to anyone who’s worked in any workplace that happy employees make better employees. And better employees make better profits. So what do you do when your employees are stressed out by a crucial part of the job?
That’s the question we’re facing in light of the 2019 Hospital Supply Chain Survey conducted by Cardinal. You likely saw many of the same headlines we did – that supply chain management was stressing out everyone in the hospital.
Let’s address the elephant in the operating room: around a quarter of survey respondents said they experienced supply-related stress. It’s not 0%, but it’s nowhere near an epidemic, either. That might have made for some convenient headlines, but it doesn’t give us much insight into the interplay of clinicians and materials management.
But a few more useful numbers jumped out at us.
Manual Management
This was our major takeaway when we reviewed last year’s survey. Supply chain processes aren’t nearly as smart as they ought to be. More than half of survey respondents said manual processes are a problem, and among clinicians and their managers, an average of 6 hours a week is lost to dealing with supply chain issues.
Multiply that by 52 weeks in a year, then multiply that for every clinician and manager in your organization. Then realize how ridiculous that is.
So what’s the solution? Well, over 75% of healthcare workers in all positions said that help from suppliers and distributors is important. Maybe they would benefit from the deep analytics behind Z5 Buy, which can identify product needs and create automated alerts when they need product again.
Waste & Overordering
None of us will be surprised to read that over 70% of healthcare workers said supplies are wasted or overutilized. We promise you that waste comes with a cost. $5 Billion in the United States every year from expired product alone.
Over 80% of respondents said they could use some recommendations from distributors. Here’s our advice (especially to the three quarters who didn’t see expiration reduction as a major advantage of inventory management): move it or lose it. And, with Z5 Reallocate fully staffing its moves, sales, and donations of your product, no one has the chance to stress out.
Missing Product
It’s not just having too much product and not knowing what to do with it. Having too little and not knowing where to find it can be just as bad.
Nearly three quarters of healthcare workers are experiencing a regular – sometimes daily – disruption because of product being mismanaged. No surprise, then, that more than 60% of the survey participants have had to deal with (or been) frustrated clinical staff.
More than half have had to borrow supplies and/or delay a case because of missing product. Might we suggest to the majority of hospitals, then, that they take a look at Z5 Count - the physical inventory that identifies where product is stored down to its exact location on the shelf?
Necessary Evil
A quarter of survey-takers named working with supplies explicitly that: a necessary evil.
Because financial concerns remain the highest of all concerns across departments. And how many of healthcare pros recognize that supply chain is important to controlling costs? More than 90%.
We’ll skip the obvious plug for one of our solutions this time. Just reread that and let it sink in.
What Obstacles
Yeah, you know you’ve got problems. But you know you can solve them. Head-on.
Around half of respondents blamed a lack of ROI for avoiding disruptive new solutions. A quarter blamed bad fit or competing priorities. What’s more interesting is what wasn’t a problem.
Only around ten percent claimed they didn’t have time to learn a new system. With everything competing for healthcare professionals’ time, 90% of them are willing to learn a new way of doing things. If it’s not disruptive. If it has proven ROI.
Are you among that 90%? Let’s talk.