DePuy Synthes esims: Improving your Profitability

Transcription

1 DePuy Synthes esims: Improving your Profitability

2 OVERVIEW Healthcare delivery organizations (HDO) continually seek ways to reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies. As healthcare costs increase and reimbursement rates decrease, every opportunity to save contributes to profitability. DePuy Synthes offers a variety of solutions and services to address these challenges, primarily in the way of supply chain efficiencies. We developed a suite of tools designed to make the management and use of our products simple and efficient. With a wide array of customizable cabinet configurations and easy-to-use software we enable our customers to independently manage their DePuy Synthes inventory. We also provide training and guidance on the use of our products and services. This ultimately lowers total investment costs and reduces the amount of time and resources spent managing the product. To illustrate this point, we followed a Level One Trauma Center and teaching hospital in the Midwest Rocky Mountains, USA, to witness how esims addressed their inventory management needs. The results were impressive. By focusing on a high-volume facility, we saw how the esims suite can easily be scaled to meet individual customer needs. Through interviewing with supply chain personnel and analyzing historical data, we found that esims substantially reduced the amount of time spent maintaining inventory and practically eliminated the cost of carrying obsolete and excess inventory. WHAT IS esims? esims stands for electronic Synthes inventory management solution. It is a simple, web-based, point-of-use software that is at the heart of our suite of inventory management tools.

3 HISTORY The first step toward achieving an integrated inventory management solution is to improve storage. Partnering with Stanley Vidmar in early 2000, Synthes installed modular, customized cabinets. These cabinets provided high density, clearly visible storage with a small footprint. Storing instruments and implants by set construct enabled hospital personnel to quickly see what product needed replenishing, ensuring that patient care is never compromised due to insufficient resources. Restocking implants is a seamless effort for Central Sterile and Sterile Processing Department employees, as the drawers are divided and labeled for each product. However, just providing the storage cabinets was not enough. Although they helped us maintain a level of inventory, they really didn t allow us the science of maintaining the inventory. With our lean hats on, we wanted to have a touch-less system. We wanted it to go through our ERP system and be transmitted to Synthes without anybody touching a keyboard for that order. (Supply Chain Program Manager) In response to the need for scientific maintaining of inventory, esims was installed at the hospital in esims streamlined the steps required to process and place orders by programming minimum and maximum par levels for inventory which automatically generated a notification. This resulted in overall inventory and overstock reductions, while virtually eliminating order process time. Evolving and improving over the years, the current esims Web version was installed in The new software effectively manages all DePuy Synthes inventory and provides the science for processing and approving replenishment of product.

4 RESULTS Order Process Time Reduced by 100%* Previously, orders were placed by phone or transcribed and faxed to their materials management information system (MMIS). This process could take up to 1.5 hours. A custom interface was built that sends the requisition directly to the MMIS instantaneously, thus replacing hours of manual order processing time with the click of a button. When sales consultants are freed up from the administrative tasks of reordering product and presenting reports, they can spend more face time with health care providers. Now we can be more focused on the clinical aspects of our positions and being in the operating room, helpful there, and spending less time doing the inventories, transcribing, writing down the inventory that was required to be ordered. (DePuy Synthes senior sales consultant.) The simplicity of the system made it easy to implement and train, therefore making it very successful, reports the hospital. Personnel have time to pick up additional responsibilities and duties now that they aren t manually keying in orders. The Stock Room Supervisor explains, having esims has freed me to do the CHS (community health services) labs and also the web and public health labs. Even the physical inventorying process is much quicker and more accurate, as items on hand are recorded and verified electronically. Pre-eSIMS, I was keying orders in and it would take me 60 to 90 minutes to key those orders in; now with the esims system, it s seconds. I just click a button it s very simple and it s very effective.

5 Inventory Stock Reduced by 47%* Obsolete Items Reduced by 95%* Since implementing esims, the hospital has reduced their overall inventory by 47% (from $800k to $425k), while simultaneously reducing their obsolete inventory by 95%, from $220k to $11k. Using the rich reports the system offers, they were able to quantify and uncover usage trends, providing a scientific method for identifying their optimal level of inventory. This transparency provides a level of trust between the hospital and the supplier. The hospital s philosophy is that they have to spend money wisely while they focus on their number one priority, their patients. Caring for over 175,000 patients per year and providing billions of dollars of uncompensated care for the past two decades, cost savings were of significant importance. While other systems were too complex to adopt, esims was a simple, efficient, user-friendly system that could be implemented easily. esims has proven to be a worthwhile solution for this and many other hospitals across the country. When savings are translated not only in dollars, but also in time, the product is truly value-add. * Results for individual facility other results may vary.

6 DePuy Synthes, Inc /13 J12143-A