The Surgery Center of Fairbanks (Alaska) was awarded the 2019 Best Practice Award for the second quarter of this year from supply chain company Inventory Optimization Solutions.
The awards are given quarterly. The ASC was recognized for its efforts to reduce supply chain costs and solving labeling and storage issues.
“We wanted to improve physical inventory by reducing the number of items we were stocking,” said administrator Jamie Conant, RN, BSN. “We needed to establish a more accurate baseline of our on-hand items and reset par levels. To do this, we planned a number of improvements. We addressed a number of challenges related to unit of measure, set up our systems to ensure accurate pricing, worked to improve the layout and labeling of our physical locations and identification of items on shelves."
To ensure continued accuracy in the ASC's supply chain, Ms. Conant leads a huddle every day with staff to minimize supplies on hand. Additionally, through using a materials management system, the ASC reduced on-hand inventory by nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the first quarter of this year.