Amy Wesley, Intelli-Flip™ Sales Manager, LogiQuip®

Over the last two months, we began looking at less traditional ways to get costs under control by addressing manual supply ordering and Institutional Knowledge.  For the next few months of this series, we turn our spotlight to PAR Optimization.  There is a lot to unpack here, so where do we start?  

The data.   

Many facilities have supply usage data that is incomplete or, in some cases, non-existent.  While it is completely understandable, you cannot set the right PAR levels without clean data.  Getting your arms around supply usage data can be time consuming and complicated.  However, if you experience frequent stockouts, high carrying costs, high expedited shipping costs, and have a lot of expired and/or obsolete supplies, it is worth the up-front time investment to realize the long-term gains.  

Begin by diving into your supply order and usage history. This will give you the baseline information (and will likely bring a few issues to light) needed to start conversations with clinicians and supply techs grounded in the data vs. checking a box or a gut feeling.  This doesn’t just give you a deeper understanding of your current state, it will also help you to prioritize the biggest opportunities so that you can start to recognize results quickly.

In addition to getting your supply costs under control, you will also see a decrease in supply techs time spent on tasks (fewer trips to supply rooms)  as well as less clinician time spent on inventory management (less searching for the supply they need) giving them time back to focus on patient care.  You could even see an increase in nursing satisfaction.    

Stay tuned for next month’s article where we will continue this conversation around PAR Optimization with some tips on how to set the right PAR levels. 

Amy Wesley is the Services and Intelli-Flip™ Category Sales Manager with LogiQuip® Healthcare Storage Solutions in Kalamazoo, MI which has exclusively served the healthcare industry for over 30 years. With more than 34 years of experience in healthcare, Amy is a seasoned professional with a strong background in sterile processing, procurement, surgical services, and supply chain management.  She is passionate about process improvement and workflow redesign, particularly in the supply chain space.

For all your supply chain operations questions, you can contact Amy at [email protected] or visit the LogiQuip® team at logiquip.com