Inventory Optimization Solutions (IOS) Announces The Surgery Center of Fairbanks has Received Q2 2019 Best Practice Award
Outpatient surgery center focused on caring for residents of Interior Alaska wins supply chain award for best practices in inventory management
ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Aug. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Inventory Optimization Solutions (IOS) is pleased to announce The Surgery Center of Fairbanks has received the Q2 2019 Best Practice Award. The Surgery Center of Fairbanks has demonstrated exceptional capabilities in streamlining inventory processes to optimize inventory and reduce cost, tackling such issues as management of physical counting, labelling and organization of storage areas, and unit of measure. IOS continually identifies and shares best practices from customers to help educate the healthcare community on supply chain automation. Each quarter, IOS recognizes an organization demonstrating supply chain excellence.
About the Organization
The Surgery Center of Fairbanks opened in 2010 and since that time has treated thousands of Interior Alaska residents with a wide range of health conditions. The center specializes in outpatient surgery and is the only free-standing fully dedicated outpatient surgical facility in the Fairbanks area. The organization is owned and operated by Alaskans, delivering care with an understanding of the issues that face all Alaskans when they need surgery. The team at Surgery Center of Fairbanks is proud to play a role in delivering care with the highest levels of efficiency and quality, and full dedication to their patients.
Commitment to Improvement
As Jamie Conant, BSN, RN, CPAN, CAPA, took the new role of administrator, she and her colleagues were able to identify areas they could improve supply chain systems and processes. Conant laid out goals to address:
- Overstocked inventory
- Inaccurate counts of on-hand supplies
- Par levels in need of adjustment
- Items without locations assigned
- Inaccurate prices in our system
- Large scale inaccuracies in unit of measure
- Locations in system to identify items on the shelves
"We wanted to improve physical inventory by reducing the amount of inventory we were stocking," said Conant. "We needed to establish a more accurate baseline of our on-hand items and reset par levels and to do this, we set planned a number of improvements. We tackled a number of challenges related to unit of measure, set up our systems to ensure accurate pricing, worked to improve the layout and labelling of our physical locations and identification of items on shelves – and today our team works collaboratively to quickly identify and manage any supply chain issues in a proactive manner."
Demonstration of Excellence
The Surgery Center of Fairbanks has reduced inventory, improved price accuracy and ongoing price negotiations, manages on-hand inventory more efficiently and cost-effectively, maintains data related to unit of measure, and conducts quarterly inventories to ensure accurate physical counts and par levels.
The team has successfully leveraged Envi to improve their processes. "Now, it's easy to find an item anywhere in our system, count and inventory it. In fact, our team reduced on-hand inventory by almost a quarter of a million dollars in the first quarter of 2019."
Focus on Best Practices
IOS works with more than 5,000 healthcare facilities throughout the United States. As a result of this large footprint and broad range of users, IOS is able to identify, document and share best practices that are designed to help healthcare organizations improve their supply chain processes and overall results.
"The Surgery Center of Fairbanks is actively measuring impressive results, demonstrating what an ambulatory surgical center (ASC) can achieve through process improvement and proactive supply chain management," said Steve Britt, President, IOS. "We've seen such commitment to excellence from their team and we're thrilled with the results they've attained. ASCs everywhere are looking for ways to deliver the highest quality patient care at the best possible prices, and Surgery Center of Fairbanks is an exceptional example of how to leverage supply chain to make that possible."
# # #
About Inventory Optimization Solutions (IOS)
Inventory Optimization Solutions (IOS) provides healthcare organizations with powerful, affordable, uniquely modular, and easy-to-use web-based supply chain solutions that offer the flexibility to support facilities throughout the continuum of care. IOS operates with a commitment to delivering world-class customer service, guiding customers to a better supply chain, providing high-touch support, industry best-practices, deep healthcare expertise and continuously evolving solutions that help them succeed. The goal of IOS is to ensure customers have more time each day for their most important role: caring for patients. For more information, visit http://www.ioscorp.com.
SOURCE Inventory Optimization Solutions (IOS)
Share this article