The first step to improving your supply chain management involves building a team of ASC leaders, material managers, physicians and perioperative clinical staff.
It’s critical to educate stakeholders and accessing and presenting the facts is the first step in addressing the problem.
Once you have your team onboard, take back control of your ASC’s inventory by exploring the following:
Product consolidation: ORs contain a surplus of “like” commodity products, such as bouffant caps. Consider consolidating these types of products from three vendors to one. Another quick-fix involves combining individually pulled products into either standard or custom procedure-specific kits or packs. Review pack program annually for item changes, waste elimination and practice changes.
Product consignment: Discuss consignment opportunities with vendors for costly products, like orthopedic and spine.
Product standardization: Only 34 percent of ASCs utilize product standardization, even though it is a proven cost-saver.1 Begin standardization with products which possess little clinical sensitivity, such as drapes and gowns.
Product flow and vendor access process: An unregulated flow of products and vendor access can disrupt your supply chain. To prevent this, establish a policy for new product entry and create a multidisciplinary committee to oversee requests for new products.
It’s also recommended to integrate critical clinical practices into the strategy to drive out waste, such as selecting the right product for the right task; choosing the appropriate gown; exploring the elimination of over draping practices; and transitioning to lower cost product alternatives.
1 http://www.beckersasc.com/asc-turnarounds-ideas-to-improve-performance/ 110-asc-benchmarks-2015.html