Richard Peters, senior director of product management for Provista, a supply chain improvement company, lists six common mistakes that ambulatory surgery centers make when purchasing supplies.
1. Buying supplies that were not contracted. Buying "off of contract" supplies – ones that aren't covered by the contract – means the ASC is not getting the discounts it negotiated. This can occur when each clinical staff member processes her own orders and is unclear about the contracted rates. "Make sure what you are buying is covered by the contract," Mr. Peters says. The person who is ordering should always be aware of what is covered.
2. Line-item price mentality. The purchaser at the ASC should not be penny-wise and pound-foolish, focusing too much on a small amount of savings that takes a whole lot of work to produce. In this all-too-familiar scenario, a purchaser spends hours searching for the absolute rock-bottom price for items like gloves and gauze sponges, even if it involves just a 5-cent difference.
3. Using multiple GPOs. When the ASC uses more than one GPO, it is splitting the total purchasing volume and will be getting lower discounts in each GPO because savings are based on volume. In addition to watered-down savings, this approach produces more layers of complexity. Purchasers have to weave together language from several contracts to decide which GPO to use. Mr. Peters estimates that 40 percent of ASCs use two to six GPOs. Two GPOs may be useful in some cases, but when there are more than two, decide which GPOs can be eliminated. "If you have to fill a gap in product coverage or service, then don't stay with that GPO," Mr. Peters says. "Look for total value rather than for savings on each item."
4. Using manual inventory tracking. Instead of using clinical and financial systems or dedicated inventory arrangement systems, a lot of ASCs use manual systems. Often they use spreadsheets that cannot be accepted into the IT system. "In many cases they actually have the automated system, but they don't use it," Mr. Peters says. This low-tech response often occurs when OR nurses do the purchasing. Address this through training or leveraging best practices at other surgery centers of the same size and volume that have more effective policies.
5. No one dedicated to supply chain. "My recommendation is having dedicated resources to help manage supply chain purchasing," Mr. Peters says. "If you have four people ordering supplies, each may not be looking at purchasing the same supplies every time." Small ASCs that cannot afford a full-time supply chain director can use technology to coordinate purchases. "You could have your two or three OR nurses ordering the supplies but the technology would provide checks and balances," he says.
6. Not using the distributor's platform. The distributor can install bar-coding and scanning, which is built into the price of the supplies. "Lock yourself into one distributor, assuming the products are good for you," he says. Use the distributor's service package.
Learn more about Provista.
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