Call it the bedrock for and key benchmark of effective and efficient supply chain management. Clinicians rely on it to care for patients, administrators bank on it to keep hospital or clinic doors open for clinicians to care for patients. From using data management tools to organizing supply storage areas, inventory management is vital to hospital operations and patient care quality. Now all it needs is a little more respect.

Decontaminating and sterilizing surgical instruments is a highly complex process whose effectiveness hinges on consistent adherence to processing standards, manufacturers’ instructions and department-wide policies and procedures. If one step in this intricate process falls short, sterility, quality and patient safety suffers. But new sterility products are working to change that.

                                                 Devices not clean? Don’t count on sterility

CS Solutions
Cleaning keyboards; goods returned to CPD; overnight soaking

As healthcare providers and suppliers swirl around supply data standards, as well as pursue radiofrequency identification (RFID) and real-time location systems (RTLS), it might be easy to overlook barcoding as a credible and legitimate contender in product-to-patient tracking. Even with newer technologies emerging in popularity and despite barcoding’s improved functionalities, barcoding still has yet to break into thousands of hospitals. So what gives?

What Works
Utilization management tool spurs physicians,
department heads to action