1. Massachusetts General Hospital (Inventory Management)
Supervised by: Dr. Mohammad Rafiq
Introduction to Information Assurance
Section: 101
Name ID
Major
Mohammad al Dossary
MIS

2. Outline Introduction Address of the Issue
Objective of Inventory Management
Solution to Problem
Automation Implementation
Advantages of the Tracking System
Mechanism of Automation
Outcomes

3. 1. Introduction What is inventory management?
What are the advantages of a good inventory management?
These issues were emphasized at Massachusetts General Hospital.

4. 2. Address the Issue
In general, hospitals are forced to curb costs and control expenses.
The most effected department by the decision is the radiology department.
Therefore, hospitals are looking forward to radiology administration to manage costly inventory.
These acts with viewing each discipline at radiology treatment, and finding solutions for it would increase the radiology supply budget.

5. “Automated and dynamic inventory tracking has helped the division realize a $150,000 supply budget savings for fiscal year 2001”

6. 3. Objectives of Inventory Management
Traditional inventory management problems are vast.
In general, the objective of inventory management is to:
Reducing on-hand stock value.
Decreasing the need for physical space.
Creating a manageable database that generates reports based on inventory utilization.
Using utilization data to help physicians decide what to keep in the department.

7. 3. Objectives of Inventory Management
Recalling the problem of decreasing expenses, under this pressure, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) needs high-technical solutions.
For instance, vascular radiology department had to, maintain a large array of equipment, supplies and devices to accommodate its wide variety of patients and attendant pathologies.
This division had several problems:
Expired stock
Insufficient space for existing stock
“Bulk” purchasing patterns to achieve savings
A high incidence of unused inventory
Virtually, no operational data to examine utilization patterns.

8. 4. Solving the PROBLEM
In October of 2000, the department implemented an inventory management system that enabled the staff to solve these problems. This system uses an automated, online patient and inventory tracking system sponsored by the Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology.
A centralized database maintains patient demographic information and procedure-specific encounter data, including:
Services provided
Operators
Inventory utilization
Billing and coding data.
The system oversees four major functions: Inventory management, Patient and clinical QA, Scheduling and Billing.

9. 5. Automation implementation
The automation implementation were done generally in two steps:
Throughout the first quarter of the year 2001, patient encounters were tracked without inventory information as an introduction to the system’s functions.
Clinical data included:
Complication analysis
Service activity analysis
Outcomes analysis
Dosage analysis
System Installation
Staff On-sight Training and Education

10. 6. Advantages of Tracking System
Specific knowledge of clinical practice.
It maintains consistency.
It has extensive search capabilities and collects/presents data.
Simplify patient scheduling and follow-up.
In a training program, the system allows clinicians to track data to document adequate experience for all trainees.
Identify the product on its register, with the relatives:

11. 7. Mechanism of automation
Orders are taken and a place are appointed for each order by using a different bar code.
Orders are recognized by either receivable or utilization
A single person, producing dependable standardized reports, replaced a labor-intensive method of manually assessing inventory levels.
The reports can be loaded with a predetermined standing purchase order for each vendor, and used as an actual order requisition to be faxed directly to the vendor.

12. 8. Outcomes
In January of 2001, the department produced between purchase orders through the hospital’s purchasing department.
In September, the ability to load summary POs into the system reduced that number to 15.
The department dedicated to decreasing the supply budget by $174,000 because of the initiative.
As a result, the automated and dynamic inventory tracking has helped the division realize a $150,000 supply budget savings for fiscal year 2001.
The department needed to order less overall inventory.
By reordering used items, the department were able to increase the availability of each product size and type, and reduce items sitting on shelves.

13. 8. Outcomes
The system’s is able to assign “charge codes” to each product.
Our system allowed the department to assign a pass-through code and maintain a manageable data file for future changes and modifications.
The operational data from the system’s reporting functions allowed administration to evaluate unit costs from several considerations.
These changes allowed the physicians, administration and technical staff to evaluate a specific product and decide on:
Consolidation
Product elimination or addition
The trial and evaluation status of new products.
In addition, monthly reports allowed administration to evaluate the dollar value associated with items above the maximum level.

14. Mentioned by an employee: “When lending products to other divisions within radiology and to other departments (i.e., surgery, cardiac cath), what was once a “free-for-all’ with little communication became a tight, information-driven system.”

15. 9. Taking stock of the future
At MGH, vascular radiology’s strategic plan for fiscal year 2002 includes working with hospital vendors to enable the software’s e-business applications to use the inventory management system as a “virtual inventory manager.” Having our system communicate with a vendor’s online ordering system would allow us to create an automatic ordering process. With effective inventory management, we can balance the needs of product availability to maximize patient care with efficient financial management.

16. Thanks for listening
Q’s & A’s