For clinical engineering, it can be overwhelming searching for quality suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) within the day-to-day operations. It can take more than 45 minutes per call to get the information needed for ordering one medical product. As a result, health care facilities can risk incurring hidden expenses and miss savings opportunities.
According to PartsSource research, the majority of a clinical engineering team’s time is spent on ordering items under $1,000. Out of those items, more than 50 percent are purchased only once per year. Therefore, when considering the amount of calls, that is a lot of time spent on items making little impact on return on investment (ROI).
Enhancing productivity within the procurement workflow
Intelligent consolidation can produce substantial savings for a health care facility. Innovative approaches to consolidating suppliers beyond traditional boundaries are critical to maximizing the value from repair parts and services spending. Faster access to key content can lead to increased efficiency and give clinical engineers additional time in the day to spend on initiatives that are more important.
To enhance productivity, the answer is always in the data. Because clinical engineering spend spreads across various departments within the hospital, the budget can get lost; and medical equipment can get misplaced if there isn’t a system established for tracking inventory. Increasing visibility into the medical procurement workflow is vital. By using procurement technology to enhance visibility and create efficiency within the overall medical procurement process, health care facilities will be able to see where bottlenecks exist.
– Brennan Stice is the vice president of business development for the western U.S. at PartsSource.
Increasing quality by leveraging a technology-based platform
A technology platform facilitates better procurement. For example, PartsSource uses a patented Supplier Ranking Module that contains qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate the quality and price of over 1,000 original equipment manufacturers and 5,000 after-market suppliers.
By simplifying and automating interactions with select, preferred medical suppliers and OEMs, health care facilities will be able to focus on supply chain development, resulting in support for more strategic initiatives regarding sustainability, innovation, risk reduction and other key organizational initiatives. All of which affect ROI and the bottom line result.
Quality analytics can help drive supply chain efficiencies in areas needing improvement within the workflow. It is important for health care facilities to depend on a single technology-based solution that helps drive workflow efficiency and provides high-quality care to patients. As long as the supplier has ISO 9001, it is a quality supplier. This certification validates the strength of a technology provider’s quality management system. Choose a procurement platform that leverages quality data to help make better decisions for organizational success.
Getting started with workflow optimization
To minimize procurement costs and improve processes, the health care organization’s procurement workflow needs to be evaluated by an expert. This requires the creation of a streamlined and structured procurement workflow to make the most of the organization’s resources. By working with an expert to integrate a technology-based platform into the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, health care facilities can make meaningful changes that will address shortcomings and improve outcomes.
Discover some key advantages to streamlining the overall procurement process by downloading a white paper titled, “Streamline Your Workflow to Increase Efficiency” at https://goo.gl/T43agS. It will explain more about how to improve workflow optimization to drive the success of a clinical engineering department.
