These days, healthcare organizations find it more challenging to ensure return on investment, streamline inventory processes, and optimize workflows.
An improved medical inventory management software is more important than ever for increasing overall effectiveness.
The way healthcare providers handle their inventories is evolving because of innovations. Healthcare institutions can now accurately and efficiently monitor the stock levels of medical supplies thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).
As per the research, from 2022 to 2030, the market for AI in healthcare, which was estimated at USD 10.4 billion in 2021, is anticipated to increase at a CAGR of 38.4%.
But,
Using AI-Powered medical inventory software to automate and expedite inventory management processes essential for healthcare providers?
Let’s find out!
In this blog, we’ll discuss the importance of medical inventory management software for hospitals, the role of AI in medical inventory software, key features, and some popular medical inventory software!
So, let’s get started!
Importance of Inventory Management Software for Hospitals in 2023
Emergencies are something that healthcare providers frequently deal with; therefore, they must have quick access to the equipment and resources they need.
Some supplies must be cycled out regularly to meet medical standards because they have a short shelf life. Healthcare providers can ensure replacements are obtained on time by deploying custom AI solutions for an efficient inventory management system.
According to the reports, the market for healthcare inventory management software is now valued at USD 22.1 billion and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2022 to 2028.
Apart from those mentioned above, some other reasons for having inventory management software for hospitals are:
- Managing the inventory of medical supplies takes extra time for hospital staff.
- When it comes to inventory management, the time that executives, physicians, or nurses could very well be spent with patients is taken up by having to wade through disconnected spreadsheets, look through containers for supplies, or complete manual inventory counts.
- Improved and more precise forecasts across your entire range are generated by machine learning.
- You can lower your typical stock levels and prevent overbuying with better projections.
- Medical supply and equipment tracking will be possible for the healthcare industry, including ventilators, face masks, and PPE. Critical medical equipment’s whereabouts can be quickly tracked.
- When inventory isn’t properly labeled and kept, it’s simple to forget about expiration and maintenance dates and to challenge keeping track of equipment. These errors could lead to medical businesses ordering unnecessary supplies or spending money on expensive equipment, which would have a negative financial impact on your healthcare business.
- A strong reputation for the hospital and its patients will result from managing healthcare inventory and assets well. In an emergency, you should constantly be aware of where your equipment is!
- To prevent expiration dates and waste, perishable inventory needs to be tracked regularly, including medicines, blood banks, and oxygen tanks. You should constantly ensure the safety of your patients.
- Lowers the cost of hospital inventory
- Increases the effectiveness and productivity of medical staff
- Decreases the likelihood of stock-outs
- Ensures the patient receives the proper supply at the correct time.
- Ensures you have the necessary inventory in the appropriate warehouses to meet service levels affordably.
- Working with administrators engaged in vast lists of supplies, equipment, and tools is difficult for doctors.
Healthcare professionals and administrators can focus more time on the institution’s financial viability by eliminating time-consuming spreadsheets and paper trails with AI based inventory management software.
Also Read: Digital Transformation in Healthcare
Moving ahead, let’s discuss,
Role of AI in Inventory Management Software for Hospitals
By eliminating the need to verify inventory manually, AI-powered medical inventory management software increases staff productivity in other departments of the organization. Inventory tracking software can give users real-time access to stock and usage information.
AI can thoroughly analyze this data to help assist wise decision-making, which is what it adds to the mix. Reduced costs, less work, and improved patient safety benefit precise and data-based decision-making.
Below are some ways in which AI enhances hospital invention management. So, take a look!
Higher Productivity
Productivity is increased by AI, which also maintains real-time equipment tracking and keeps inventories at the optimal level. Inventory tracking using artificial intelligence will also lessen human mistakes.
Data-driven Insights
Hospitals can obtain data-based forecasts and precise inventory planning by integrating Artificial intelligence and analytics into their supply chain for hospital inventory. This has several advantages, such as improved hospital supply management, lower costs, and increased operational effectiveness.
Boost Efficiency
Using barcode scanners to get the most recent stock information, you can determine whether things are running low. It also makes it much simpler to check the expiry dates of perishables and keep track of the location and upkeep needs of expensive and essential medical equipment.
It Helps to Avoid Understocking & Overstocking
It is crucial to maintain accurate and timely data to alert you when your equipment, supplies, drugs, and more require replenishment so that patients won’t experience delays or even denial of healthcare services.
Healthcare companies cannot take the possibility of missing or low inventory when addressing critical health issues. When the inventory goes below or rises over the pre-configured inventory level, the AI-based medical inventory management software has a feature that will give you Alerts.
Limit Costs
Unquestionably, your healthcare team is one of the most expensive assets. Hospital inventory management systems eliminate the necessity for excessive development. These systems also provide you with up-to-date inventory statistics that make it simple to decide how to scale your employees to handle the volume of business you are experiencing.
Reduces Errors
Year after year, automated medical inventory software becomes more widespread. Transforming your inventory management system to an AI-Powered that takes all facets of your business into account will only boost your company’s performance. The likelihood of human error is also nearly eliminated when a tested system is given control. In terms of your inventory, accuracy is crucial. Therefore, avoid taking the chance of losing money on something that may be avoided.
Greater Accessibility
Among the most frequent data-related inventory issues, lack of visibility frequently results in gaps and errors in crucial management and inventory data. This problem frequently results from the usage of obsolete technologies and labor-intensive manual inventory management techniques.
You may automatically store, gather, and distribute all inventory-related data with an AI-based medical inventory management solution. These include product location in the warehouses, product information, supplier delivery schedules, product tracking, and much more.
As you’ve seen, the importance and role of AI in hospital inventory management software. Now, let’s move forward and discuss,
Must-have Features of AI-powered Medical Inventory Management Software
If you want to build healthcare inventory management software for your healthcare business, you must include the following features in your custom solution!
Integration Capabilities
Integrating the AI-based medical inventory software with any other applications you use to manage your business is essential. Data sync across all platforms is made possible by integrations. It aids in preventing errors, duplications, and the analysis of data silos. The efficiency of all business processes is increased by connecting your medical inventory software with ERP, CRM, Bookkeeping Software, and Supplier Portal to build the ideal ecosystem for your healthcare business’s growth.
Read More: Unlock the potential of automated bookkeeping software development for streamlined financial management and enhanced accuracy.
Offline Mode
Productivity shouldn’t be hampered by poor Internet connectivity in vast warehouses and off-the-grid places. Ensure your hospital inventory management solution offers an “offline” functionality that permits offline modifications and upgrades so dead spots won’t affect efficiency or turnover ratio. The information should sync to your online/cloud database and sync across all locations as soon as a Wi-Fi or cellular network is accessible.
Low/restock Alerts
A lack of essential medical supplies can be disastrous. Your AI-Powered medical inventory management software had to have low stock alerts that instantly send reminders when supplies start to run low. This feature serves as a reorder management system. This guarantees that you can replenish inventory as soon as it runs low. Make sure these alerts may be configured to send an email, an in-app message, or both.
Return Handling
One of the critical issues that owners of healthcare businesses must address is this. Manually tracking returned products is a complex undertaking. An effective inventory solution offers a system that effectively manages the creation, confirmation, and cancellation of return orders. This simplifies the tedious withdrawal procedure. It provides a competitive advantage, saves time and money, raises client happiness, and lowers the likelihood of a mistaken entry.
Scan QR/Barcode
A built-in scanner that enables quick code and inventory information capture should be included with the AI-Powered medical inventory management software. By using this, hospitals can cut back on administrative and personnel expenditures. The existing QR labels and barcodes on the medical supplies must be compatible with the system. Hospitals must be able to write their codes using it as well.
Track Multi-warehouses
A single solution may be used to handle warehouses at several locations thanks to this functionality of hospital inventory software. It makes it possible to examine and exchange digital data on stock levels and returns from various vendors. An inventory management system for hospitals offers thorough reports for the entire network of stores, giving the user a thorough understanding of profit, loss, stock levels, etc.
Security
Many crucial and private data about your business is kept in medical inventory management systems. As a result, practically every industry places a high priority on security features. The ideal software should include tools for configuring user access to various data pieces within the software. Additionally, the platform must consist of capabilities for quickly backing up and transferring data (exporting and importing) and keeping track of user activities.
Reorder
In healthcare organizations, it’s standard practice to order excess medical supplies. Though doctors and nurses agree there are hundreds of outdated devices in their clinics’ inventories, this method can lead to unneeded medications and healthcare supplies piling up in the hospital. Expiration alerts are incorporated into AI-based hospital inventory management software to notify staff when certain medications are getting close to their expiration dates before it becomes late. The software also alerts users when a prescription or other item needs to be refilled before it runs out of stock.
Items Management
All products should be listed in a single directory via medical equipment inventory management software. You will be able to offer kits and organize them into many categories. Additionally, you can use advanced search criteria to identify and sort products by name, SKUs, quantity, details, suppliers, etc.
Track Expires Products
Expiry management is a need for AI-Powered medical inventory management software. Hospitals could experience a large loss from expired products. In any pharmacy, drugs are frequently bought in bulk with various MRPs and expiration dates. Consequently, companies may need to check the expiration dates of individual medications or products and inadvertently keep them on the rack. Including this functionality in hospital inventory management software can be prevented. It can alert staff that products are about to expire so they can either use them beforehand or return them to the supplier.
Also Read: 8 Ways AI can Improve Inventory Management
As you’ve seen the features of medical inventory management software; now, let’s move forward and discuss,
Top 5 Medical Inventory Management Software of 2023
Top medical inventory management software for hospitals are:
MedSupply
Any healthcare business can easily manage its medical inventory with the help of the flexible, feature-rich, and simple-to-use MedSupply. MedSupply was created expressly for medical institutions of all shapes and sizes, in contrast to generic inventory software. Critical supplies, prescriptions, gadgets, and much more are tracked by this system, as well as patient usage and activities.
Healthcare professionals can automatically scan things as they enter and exit the facility to log inventory levels using the track-and-trace functionality. In improving inventory tracking and guaranteeing data accuracy across all systems, MedSupply Software interacts with various EMR (electronic medical records) and other methods.
Hybrid
Assisting the healthcare businesses in meeting the demanding requirements to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and improve quality, Hybrent is designed to boost the condition of healthcare today through the provision of ground-breaking technology, the generation of business analytics, and visibility beyond the confines of conventional systems that find it difficult to advance.
Hybrent automates purchasing, inventory management, and invoicing procedures for healthcare institutions. Using a single platform, customers can browse, order, authorize, and track medical goods from various vendors. Available scanning and barcode capabilities for computers, tablets, and mobile devices to decrease manual errors and increase efficiency.
Healthcare businesses may track products using barcodes, receive and store supply orders online, and manage inventory counts across various facilities from anywhere.
ENVI
Hospitals, urgent care facilities, urgent care facilities, and physician groups can use the healthcare inventory management system ENVI.
Users can control their operations and inventories from a single platform using ENVI, which works with all of their venues. A single vendor master and product list can be used to manage all locations, with support for managing suppliers and prices that are unique to each site as needed. Users can explore and order products, manage item lists, and keep orders.
You can customize every part of your workflow, inventory, and administrative processes, which allows you to streamline the steps necessary to run high-performing operations. Methods of inventory management are supported. Additionally, ENVI provides a barcode reader, tracking for a wide range of sorts, serial and expiration numbers, tracking for inlays, bespoke reports, and more.
Tru Asset
In healthcare, managing assets and equipment is easily a full-time job. By using TruAsset, businesses can give everyone the tools they need to perform their duties more effectively while saving time and resources.
It ensures that every equipment complies fully with safety requirements and keeps a thorough audit record to prove that you are still in compliance. Every aspect of your workflow, inventory, and administrative procedures may be customized, allowing you to reduce the steps required to drive high-performing processes.
EZOfficeInventory
EZOfficeInventory assists you in process optimization by identifying your precise needs. All medical equipment, including PPE, surgical equipment, and significant permanent assets, can be tracked and monitored. Additionally, its comprehensive sourcing and inventory control aids in keeping the business lean by reducing storage expenses and overheads related to out-of-date and missing medical supplies.
By using the smartphone or external scanners to read RFID, barcodes, and QR Code tags, users can quickly check products in and out. It eliminates administrative bottlenecks and assists in keeping track of serial numbers and expiration dates so healthcare businesses can concentrate on what matters most.
Conclusion
Only by accelerating new and emerging technologies will medical institutions be able to change with the times.
One such technology breakthrough that can assist in streamlining operations and enhancing organizational capabilities is a medical inventory management system. Knowing your institution’s unique needs and the functionality or solutions that can meet them is the first step in creating your own medical inventory software.
If you’re interested in implementing medical inventory management software for your healthcare organization, our team of experienced developers is here to assist you.
Custom healthcare software development company, Matellio, have a range of services that can facilitate the process. In addition to multi-location inventory management, fulfillment management, automated stock replenishment, batch and serial tracking, inventory cycle, and other features.
If you have any inquiries about designing and putting into action the ideal solution for your needs, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Let’s talk about any inquiries during a no-cost consultation with our specialists.
