Supply Chain Management in Healthcare: Inventory and Procurement
Supply Chain Management in Healthcare
Introduction
The management of supply takes place in several stages:
- Acquisition of equipment
- Storage of product
- Service is suitable and favorable spending in large centers
Management of Purchases
The management of purchases is made in different ways:
- Centralized: Used for certain items. An entity buys all the material requested, and all the health centers in need get supplies from this entity. Being larger orders, better prices will be obtained for the products bought. This procedure is called “approved material” and is published annually in a catalog of selected items, such as hardware and vehicles.
- Decentralized: Each center runs its own shopping, usually through competition, to choose suppliers.
- Mixed: Using the two earlier forms, this is the most used.
Stock Management
In any store, the following stock levels should be set:
- Minimum Stock: The minimum quantity of a certain article that must always be in a warehouse to ensure proper supply to various services. It is determined by the delivery date and the pace of demand for that item.
- Maximum Stock: The maximum amount of a given item over which none should be stored. This considers the cost of storage volume and special discounts.
- Security Stock: This is a minimum quantity of each item that must always be in a warehouse. It is stored to meet unexpected demands or excessive delays in the provision. It prevents stock rupture, which is when the hospital cannot cover patients due to a lack of commodities.
- Purchasing Horizon: Time lag between purchasing.
- Point of Order: The smallest units of an item in a warehouse. Supplies are kept as they arrive, requiring new supplies to be ordered.
- Economic Lot: The quantity that should be sought from an article so that warehousing costs and order are at a minimum.
Types of Items Stored
According to the Target
- Normal Stock: What is usually required to maintain the activity of the company. The number of items that should be stored is known and should be preset to a maximum and a minimum per article.
- Extraordinary Stock: This is when the amount or type of item is not the common one. It can be stored because a certain article is needed occasionally.
According to Type or Nature of the Material
- Finished Product: What is ready to be consumed. Many types can be frozen, fresh, or dry stored, each in different ways and with different costs (paraffin, Harris, alcohol, HTX 96).
- Packaging Material: Everything that is used to keep an item in good condition during storage and transport (packaging, labels).
- Raw Materials: They are processed to form the product the firm serves.
- Partially Processed Materials: The materials are subjected to successive processing operations to be useful. They are stored between operations (Schiff reagent).
- Components: Finished products that are incorporated into the process of transformation of one of them.
- Various: Parts, supplies, consumption, and replacement materials (stickers, blades, cassettes).
- By-products: Waste.
By Use and Longevity
- Expendable: Material that is exhausted with use in a short time, either once or several times. It needs replacement in short periods (Pasteur pipettes, cotton, gloves, blades of scalpels).
- Inventory: What is exhausted with a single application or replenished after short periods of use (microtomes, microscopes, paraffin dispensers, glassware).