Using analytics for healthcare supply chain management can help deliver insights that alleviate process inefficiencies, drive standardization, and reduce clinical spending.
FREMONT, CA: Healthcare facilities spend nearly one-third of overall operating expenses on healthcare supply chain management. Buying supplies, equipment, and the latest advancements to support high-value care delivery is expensive, particularly as hospitals and health systems expand their provider networks. Data analytics tools have the potential to give supply chain leaders insights into how to mitigate their costs and automate their processes. Here are the ways how analytics can improve supply chain operations in healthcare.
• Reduce Waste and Inefficiencies
The procurement process is one of the greatest opportunities for health systems to use analytics to drive down costs. By analyzing performance measures like purchasing frequency, supply chain leaders can evaluate procurement practices within facilities to identify inefficiencies. These insights can help them determine where high levels of waste may be, while also allowing better sourcing of products according to quality, volume, and price.
• Inventory Analysis to Increase Standardization
By standardizing their non-acute care inventories, health systems can reduce costs by lowering product variation, pushing inventory costs of non-acute care higher, and reducing clinician time spent managing a complex inventory. Non-acute suppliers can help health systems improve their product standardization by analyzing inventories and sharing that data with supply chain managers. This will let health systems to improve care quality by ensuring that all clinicians use the same high-quality products while lowering costs.
• Improve Inventory Management
Inventory management is always complex. However, too much inventory can push costs up and lead to waste because some products expire before they get used. By analyzing recent inventory reports, health systems can gain visibility into the use and spend to ensure they replenish supplies more efficiently and cost-effectively. Utilizing this increased visibility, health facilities can develop an accurate distribution model, enabling them to order the exact quantity of supplies they require. This is especially important for clinics and medical offices with limited storage space.
