Managing medical products and supplies is a challenging task because there’re so many medical products available. As an occupational health provider, you’re required to be good at this regardless of the burden it carries.
We understand the challenges of managing medical products and supplies and we have prepared these top tips for you. These ideas will help you use the least amount of time when updating the inventory and saving on purchasing unnecessary medical products.
Tips for managing medical products and supplies
Familiarize yourself with medical items
The main issue affecting the medical field is wastage of products resulting from product misuse. Poor handling of medical products leads to wastage as once they’re exposed to an unsterilized environment, you can no longer use them.
Understanding the various medical items and products helps reduce this wastage.
Inventory documentation
If you’re in charge of medical products and supplies, you should have clear documentation of every product available in stock. To ease your work, use inventory software instead of doing all this work manually. Inventory software helps improve equipment reliability, restocking and disposal of expired stock.
Use the inventory software to classify the items according to their unique identification number, manufacturer, a precise description of the item and the department which owns the equipment.
Standardize medical kits
All medical kits and other items available in the hospital should be labeled with clear names known to every user. Labeling medical supplies helps reduce time wastage when trying to get an item and product wastage as you only open what you need.
Include a clear guide explaining each abbreviation used on the medical products.
Protect your supplies
You should store the medical supplies in durable containers to retain their effectiveness and efficiency. Remove them from the shipping packages and transfer them to your containers. This helps prevent damage and eases tracing when you want to use them.
Conclusion
Keeping track of the instruments and medical inventory is a demanding activity and you may waste a lot of time if you’re not doing it well. Having clear documentation of your inventory, familiarizing yourself with the medical items, standardizing your medical kits and protecting supplies will help you manage your medical products and supplies better.