Healthcare Cost Solutions, LLC

For OR Information Systems that offer capabilities for clinicians to document items wasted, it is useful to periodically analyze waste by preference list and by service.  This allows an assessment of whether products are preforming as they should, and whether clinicians are using the products appropriately.

HCS has developed a report to facilitate this analysis.  The report contains three sections:

• By item, by preference list (i.e. surgeon-specific), by service
• By item, in descending value, across all preference lists within each service
• By item, in descending value, acrosss all services

The first report section shows wasted item, by preference list (i.e. surgeon-specific), within each service.

The next report section summarizes waste across all preference lists within a service, as shown below. 

The final report section provides a high-level summary of wasted items with the greatest dollar impact.  You can quickly see which wasted items wasted account for the most dollars, and the number of units wasted to get a sense of how frequently the items are wasted.

Note in this example that there are a number of products that fall into the endomechanicals category.  This may suggest a possibility of a batch of defective products, or a need for inservice in proper usage of these items.  It also raises the procedural question of whether or not the OR staff are notifying the supply chain staff when products fail to perform as they should so replacements can be sought, rather than the items simply being discarded with no attempt to seek credit or replacements.

We welcome an opportunity to offer a proposal for running these kinds of reports for your hospital or health system.

See also Preference List Usage Analysis and Preference List Item Location Optimization