At the most basic level, hospitals today have two important objectives: doing everything they can to reduce their costs, and recognizing opportunities that will help them improve their operating efficiencies. Management Health Solutions offers online data distribution and analysis solutions that enable our clients to address both objectives simultaneously.

The process begins with MHS inventory specialists spending four to five days conducting an inventory survey for a hospital. Once the survey is complete, we present data through an online portal that details, among other information, the items we counted, the areas we counted them in and their value. This provides the client a point-in-time valuation of the inventory for end-of-year reporting. But that’s just the beginning. Consider what the hospital can learn from the data:

• A hospital can discover anomalies that are contributing to costs rather than reducing them. For example, hospitals can identify areas where they’re stockpiling inventory but not using the supplies. Often, this can represent significant financial exposure.
• A hospital can determine if there is interaction with more vendors than necessary. By reducing the number of vendors, hospitals can gain enhanced leverage, driving financial efficiencies and volume discounts that otherwise would be unavailable.

When MHS does an inventory for a hospital, we remove all expired items from the shelves. The corresponding data that results enables hospital management teams to reexamine their ordering procedures and make them more in keeping with actual usage patterns. This leads to better economics -- and better operational efficiency.

In addition, there is more valuable information clients can access through our online portal.

• By using the data to conduct trend analyses, a client can draw valuable insights relative to their case mix. The hospital can learn how many of a particular procedure they’re doing annually and stock inventory appropriately.
• A client can gain access to industry benchmarks and third-party data that lets them compare their inventory mix with industry standards.

MHS gives each of our clients’s decision support information that helps their managers address business challenges they may have faced -- but failed to deal with for years.

MHS data delivery helps hospitals determine:

• Usage and obsolescence trends
• Number of turns
• Overall inventory value
• Supplier and community dependencies
• Potential for savings
• Opportunities for consolidation and standardization