Without doctors and other professions in the healthcare industry, it is impossible to let the patient get a health treatment. However, without the supply provided by the healthcare supply chain, the healthcare institutions could be ‘’paralyzed’’. So, it is absolutely essential to maximise the healthcare supply chain. When healthcare professionals obtain prescription medications, medical equipment such as lab equipment list Malaysia, and other items through a streamlined healthcare supply chain, the healthcare professionals and institutions not only save costs, boost revenue, but also, most importantly, are capable of providing better care to the patients. To optimise the healthcare supply chain, suppliers must tackle the following challenges.
1) Overnight Shipping Services
Overnight shipping is unquestionably necessary for the healthcare industry. When an emergency occurs, hospitals have a responsibility to respond. While one or two overnight orders will not have a significant impact on a provider’s bottom line, regular overnighters will. Aside from cases of emergency, a significant cause for overnight shipments is stockouts from poor inventory control. Trying to implement software applications that can mitigate these issues, reducing overnight shipping to emergency situations only.
2) Hidden Fees
Another challenge faced by the healthcare supply chain is hidden fees. In most cases, buyers only consider the product price and shipping costs, but ignore price variations and quality changes that could result in overcharging. That is where high-quality healthcare software comes in, providing greater transparency so providers can price their products more holistically, including the costs of moving and managing supplies.
3) Shortages of Prescribed Drugs
Drug shortages have always been a challenge in healthcare, and yet they appear to become more serious as a result of supply chain disruptions. Shortages force suppliers either to procure far more expensive options or maintain a backup stock of at-risk commodities, resulting in increased inventory management costs. Healthcare item suppliers are strongly encouraged to benefit from the use of drug supply chain monitoring software. It can support suppliers in traceability and planning around long-term scarcities of thousands of drugs, along with preventing being taken by surprise by unprecedented outages.
4) Data Scarcity
One of the most difficult challenges for hospital executives is making decisions without actionable data, up-to-date modelling systems, and reference to actual-time reports. One reason for this is that the supply chain data needed is isolated and siloed. Several software solutions can assist hospitals in increasing data visibility in order to optimise their supply chain. Moreover, it can help to create seamless processes of equipment demands, and even plan new construction.
5) Different Preferences
Each physician and healthcare professional has different product preferences. Most businesses allow this to be the ultimate decision in purchasing. Sadly, physician choices are rarely related to improved outcome measures and can regularly lead to negative cost estimates, reducing profits but also finally reducing patient care quality. Total cost of ownership visibility software can assist physicians realise the bigger effect of their equipment preferences and contribute to making more holistic decisions. If indeed the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a particular device is so high that it affects support staff expenditures, equipment decision-makers and administrators can quickly present the argument for choosing a more economical option.
Nevertheless, the healthcare supplier should improve and control any disruptions that can cause inefficiency of the supply chain. Healthcare professionals and suppliers must work together to create a better and healthier nation.
