Materials Management Facilitates Efficient, Cost-Effective Supply Chain Strategies at Geneva Hospital 
(1/08/2008)

Hospitals' ability to deliver safe, quality efficient patient care depends not only on clinical care tools, but also on maintaining a fully stocked, well-maintained inventory supply. Geneva Hospital (Geneva, NY) and its affiliate Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital (Penn Yan, NY) have taken on this challenge by sharing the same MEDITECH Materials Management (MM) system to eliminate supply uncertainty while still leveraging costs. "We've been using the system since 2003, and since then we've significantly improved ordering coordination between our sites, while benefiting from timesaving workflow processes and organization-wide savings," says Geneva's Purchasing Manager, Karen Burlingame. "The application has certainly enhanced our overall experience replenishing inventory supplies, as our old system used to be very labor intensive when it came to adding, changing, or finding items. The MEDITECH system is so much better than what we used to have." Time-Saving, User-Friendly Capabilities From the start, ease-of-use has been one of the biggest advantages of MEDITECH's system, according to Burlingame. "Beginning with our implementation, it's been quite a smooth and easy transition for staff working with the system on a day-to-day basis," she says.

"The MEDITECH training was very personalized, so it was easy for us to take what we had learned in class and apply it directly in our work. We also had terrific user support from MEDITECH, so even those of us who had never worked with computers before could overcome our fears. Placing orders electronically eventually became second nature to us."

Once the staff got rolling, they found that item searches were also much easier to complete, as users could search for items by catalogue number, description, department, or specific item information. "We were able to save a lot of time on our ordering, because there are so many different ways to successfully find an item," says Burlingame. "The quality of work in our department has improved tremendously, because we weren't wasting time and resources tracking down information."

EDI Transactions, Robust Reporting Make Supply Chain Management Simpler Geneva found yet another way to save time with the MEDITECH system, by working with GHX for EDI purchasing transactions. The hospital now uses the technology to place orders electronically with over 30 preferred vendors. "EDI cuts down on costs as well as errors, since it eliminates miscommunications that often happen when placing orders over the phone," says Burlingame. Both Geneva and Soldiers and Sailors also benefit from robust reporting capabilities inherent in the MEDITECH system. "We can run reports to track spending for each vendor, organize vendor information and performance, track spending by site, and rank item importance," says Burlingame. "It's really nice to have this information, and it helps us with order planning and keeping on top of our budgets."

Looking Forward to Even More Improvements
Going forward, Burlingame hopes that Geneva will expand its MM capabilities to include barcoding and handheld technologies. Until then, she's glad to be using a system that always makes data easy to find, whenever and wherever she needs it. "Many of us who thought we would never be able to use these technologies are now finding ourselves to be computer whizzes after all," she says. "Change is never easy but I'm glad to say that this MM application has made our lives here a whole lot easier."

MEDITECH
Medical Information Technology, Inc.
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Westwood, MA 02090
781-821-3000
www.meditech.com