3 Reasons Having Accurate Medical Inventory Is So Important

Keeping hospital operating costs down can be a struggle. According to Becker’s CFO Report, hospitals’ medical equipment lifecycle (MELC) costs average $93 billion a year. Of these costs, up to 16% are lost due to inaccurate information and lack of resources.

One common weak point is maintaining an accurate medical inventory of capital assets. Tracking equipment throughout its lifecycle — from purchase to service and disposition — is a smart way to optimize capital asset management strategies.

Here are three reasons why accurate medical inventory is so important:

1. Asset Underutilization

Medical and healthcare equipment has a very low utilization rate (around 42%). Low utilization means huge revenue losses and higher expenditures for any facility.

And without an accurate medical equipment list, it’s easy for signals to get crossed. This often results in unnecessary replacements or unused service contracts.

2. Capital Budgets

Accurate equipment lists are also important to properly manage capital budgets. Knowing which assets need replacement and when helps avoid last-minute purchases or repairs.

A replacement schedule helps disperse expenditures more evenly from year to year, too. Forecasting assets that will retire with retained value gives more time to connect with an end-user buyer, which helps return more money by cutting inflated costs from third party resellers.

3. Compliance Regulations

With thousands of assets to manage, keeping up with service contracts and insurance requirements can become complicated quickly. In fact, many hospitals carry coverage on equipment no longer on hand.

Meeting mandated reviews and financial reporting requirements is also difficult without an accurate asset ledger. This accuracy is essential to meet government and internal accounting requirements with minimal headache.

Of course, creating and maintaining an up-to-date asset inventory is crucial for many reasons beyond the few we’ve mentioned here, as well. By streamlining asset management, you can reduce overhead and keep equipment in optimal condition, all while adding to the bottom line.

Inventory Services With BidMed

BidMed offers a range of inventory services, including assessments, reconciliation and accuracy reports, and data cleaning. These services are specifically designed to help hospitals manage medical equipment more effectively.

Inventory Assessments

An inventory assessment sets you up for success from the very start. Our team of specialists comes to your facility to professionally and systematically inventory all capital assets present on-site.

Our experience in live medical settings, paired with the Helix Mobile app, allows us to work 2.5x faster than traditional methods.

Most Helix Mobile users average 620 assets per week, compared to just over 300 with a separate barcode scanner and laptop. Leveraging an existing but uncertain database increases speeds even more — often completing 720 assets in a week.

At the end of an inventory project, you have a complete inventory record that integrates seamlessly with Helix Workflow+. This system optimizes internal disposition workflows, ensuring records stay accurate moving forward.

Reconciliation and Accuracy Reports

In addition to complete inventory assessments, Helix allows us to provide clear and comprehensive reconciliation reports compared to previous lists. These help identify what assets may have already left your facility, which can be removed from asset ledgers and service contracts.

Reconciliation and accuracy reports highlight:

• verified assets (equipment included on original list and found on-site)
• new adds (equipment found on-site but not included on original list)
• missing assets (equipment on original list but not found on-site)

Accuracy reports also help identify current team compliance pitfalls — allowing modifications to improve ongoing workflows.

Data Cleaning

Another key to maintaining useful equipment lists is data and nomenclature standardization. Variations in spelling and terminology make keeping track of assets in a database extremely difficult.

Our data cleaning services ensure this consistency and provide an accurate and searchable list that’s easy to keep updated. Data cleaning is included with all Inventory Assessments, and is also available for existing inventory lists without an on-site project.

A Perfect Pairing of Services and Technology

Along with our proprietary Helix tech suite, these services produce a finalized and secure cloud-based record. There you can manage, reallocate, or resell your assets all from one place. See how Workflow+ helps healthcare facilities maintain accurate medical inventory records.