Overcoming barriers to operating room inventory control.

Overcoming barriers to operating room inventory control

The operating room (OR) has an aura of mystery. Bold signs restrict personnel. Special attire, hats, and masks hide faces and bodies from view. Patients enter, are anesthetized, cut and opened, repaired and closed, and emerge, groggy but cured.

The mystique of the OR can create significant barriers to managing expenses. Often there is the underlying hint of clinical blackmail: Cost reductions and restricted spending will drive away key surgeons.

Financial managers should remove barriers to efficiency, cost effectiveness, and cost reduction in the OR relating to inventory and inventory control. Strategies to achieve this include using members of the medical staff to set product standards and negotiating more advantageous contracts with vendors.

Controlling operating room inventory is critical to cost reductions in the OR. In an operating room suite of eight or more rooms, inventory value may exceed $1 million. This sum can be reduced by 10 percent to 30 percent, not including related savings such as holding costs. Although the inventory control process is lengthy and complicated, it is well worth pursuing.

Controlling OR inventory requires a detailed inventory plan that considers the complexities and nuances of the surgical suite. The basic tenets of an OR inventory plan are:

Count,

Value,

Reduce the value, and

Implement controls.

There are several reasons for using this process. Counting and valuing the inventory helps create a plan for inventory reduction. Second, and perhaps more important, this process provides key information for negotiating with vendors.

Armed with inventory data, financial managers can save $200,000 or more through carefully planned vendor meetings. Market shifts can also yield valuable savings to an institution. The ability to complete this negotiation process is an equally important reason to count, value, and analyze the OR inventory.

COUNT THE INVENTORY

The process that leads to supply cost savings in the OR begins with a complete physical inventory, and the approach is very different from that of a storeroom or central supply inventory.

The only truly useful OR inventory counts everything. It accounts for the total value of all single patient use items in every location of the OR -- not just storage areas, but also operating rooms and special carts. This approach permits the comparison of inventory internally by fiscal year or externally among peers. Less complete inventories do not provide these advantages.