Jump Technologies announced a new tool to fight waste and avoid patient health risks caused by expired products in hospitals and health systems.
The company has unveiled enhancements to its simple mobile scanning solution, which improve compliance for recording lot and serial numbers, and expiration dates of products used in hospitals. The enhanced JumpStock scanning capabilities simplify the experience and workflow for hospital supply chain staff and nurses. These scanning capabilities are included in a new Expiration Tracking Module, which is now available free of charge to all existing Jump Technologies customers. This module can also be purchased as a standalone solution by hospitals.
In addition to simplifying the scanning experience for hospital staff, the Expiration Tracking Module captures data and transforms it into actionable information for hospitals as it is migrated into a real-time Expiration Date Dashboard, which is powered by JumpStock’s analytics. This information helps hospital leaders identify expiring products long before they actually expire.
“Hospitals throw away an estimated $765 billion of usable medical supplies each year, and expired products are a significant part of the problem, with 7% to 10% of items expiring on the shelf,” said John Freund, CEO, Jump Technologies. “The challenge for hospitals when trying to manage expiration dates has been the difficulty in recording this information into their inventory management systems. We focused on this user experience and made it easy to record the data needed, which allows management to avoid products expiring on the shelf.”
Finding the correct barcode to scan on a package can be a challenge that prevents hospitals from recording critical data. With JumpStock’s simple point-of-use scanning tool, hospital supply chain staff and nurses can scan all of the barcodes on the product’s packaging and JumpStock will automatically determine which of them is needed to record the lot, serial number, and expiration date. This eliminates the need for special labeling and simplifies the training process.
Once scanned, JumpStock pushes out alerts about products that are soon to expire via email and serves up a dashboard showing the expiration status of items throughout the health system. This allows supply chain leaders to drill down to an individual PAR location in an individual hospital and to see where staff must take action to protect patients and avoid potential disruptions to services by replacing those items or triggering a new order.
Expired supplies have a cost beyond dollars and cents. Use of expired products with patients is a long-time problem that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using expired products increases the potential for adverse patient outcomes while opening the door to lawsuits against hospitals.
Jump Technologies offers the Expiration Tracking Module as a standalone solution or integrated into their JumpStock inventory management platform.
