By Mariel Paige
Imagine yourself as the supply chain manager of a manufacturing plant, recently advised of a dangerous rise in expenses that are eating away at the company profits. You are confident that you can achieve significant savings with a little leg work to find cheaper products and some bulk-purchasing deals.
…Now, change the scenario slightly by imagining the same financial situation, but you are an executive of a healthcare facility. It’s not quite as easy to find similar savings when you’re dealing with the care of patients, whose lives literally depend on product quality and supply availability.
Health systems across the globe are struggling to manage shrinking margins in a highly volatile environment. Medical cost trends and policy reform have constrained providers into a cost-cutting frenzy to find solutions that won’t compromise care effectiveness. Success can be found by targeting supply chain weaknesses by removing waste. The purpose of this article is to explain the healthcare industry challenges, delve into the benefits of applying lean principles, and provide the framework for implementing a Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory concept through demand-driven procurement, which will result in reduced costs and enrich the delivery of patient care. The key to sustainable inventory control lies in the backbone of the new primary care model that focuses on bringing back the patient-physician relationship.
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