We are discussing setting up our O.R. as an inventory location in Lawson. Has anyone done this? Not a supply room in the back somewhere but within the O.R. and it's self including 12 O.R. suites. With so many hands in the cookie jar it seems like it would be very hard to managed. Any feedback would be great!

thanks

Rich

For a while, our organization was going to push perpetual inventories in the OR and Radiology/Imaging areas (20+ hospitals). The operating phrase is "for a while." The idea, from a Finance perspective, is sound, you get more detailed information about your usage and ultimately more control over it.

We have numerous OR-specific buyers throughout the system, and that is great. BUT we have zero OR-specific inventory persons. Maintaining a perpetual inventory requires dedication and specific buy-in from everyone in the O.R.--it's a cultural thing.

But back to the original plan... We envisioned each OR suite to be set up as a par location which would pull from the primary OR inventory. This inventory could pull from the general med/surg inventory or could be replenished directly from the vendor. It looked wonderful on paper. It looked WORKABLE on paper.

The reality is that things fall to the floor, kits aren't always packed as listed and some patients refuse to cooperate with the plan (a/k/a emergencies arise). Each of these is an "opportunity" for the OR perpetual to kattie-wonkers. (I have no idea if that is a word, but I like the sound of it.)

What we have been able to do, in a small number of hospitals, is to set their OR "inventories" up as par locations. These are then processed via handhelds. It is a workable compromise that greatly increased the efficiency of the support staff while not burdening the technical staff.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the feeback.
We have also been mandated by finance for the or inventory. We have talked about creating PAR location. I thought that a PAR location was not a true asset location in Lawson. I thought a PAR location would not give a value to your inventory, keep on hand quantities, etc, or provided count sheets for a physical inventory.

Rich

And the answer is "mostly true."

Within Lawson, par locations will give you a kind of valuation. By that I mean, if you run the Par Valuation screen (IC283), it will multiply the unit cost of each item by the par quantity. (For locations identified as "Exchange Carts" it will double this value.) The end of the report is a simple estimation of the par value. This does not take into account what is or is not on the shelf.

Par Locations are true IC Locations, but they are not full asset locations. By running the Par Inventory Worksheet (IC281) you do get a count sheet for the par location (that is the point of the screen), but the par count is different than a physical inventory count because...par locations do not maintain "on hand" quantities. Once an item is issued to a par location, it is considered expensed. (This also explains the simplified calculations for the par valuation.)

I just want to be clear that I was not equating par locations with perpetual inventories. In our case, the move to perpetual OR inventories was hampered by not having the correct IC skillset in the OR and a lack of buy-in from the OR staff to follow correct perpetual IC protocols. If your Finance team makes this a strong enough mandate, then they should be able to overcome these issues. The par scenario was a compromise, but it was an improvement from prior operations.

All that probably just added mud to the water.

Thanks. That's what I'm trying to explain to our finance people. I don't think they relaize the amount of people on a day to day basis that would be handling the inventory. If items are not recorded correctly well there goes your inventory. In a busy OR your goning to need more material people to handle it correctly.

Rich

Perpetual OR's are a challenge regardless of the software....it has nothing to do with Lawson, ESI, Peoplesoft, etc.

The nature of the beast makes tracking inventory in that volatile of an environment nearly impossible.

What I have seen done is setup Pars, then a valuation of some kind semi-annually to book the dollars. I've seen it done with Lawson reports, and we have also written some custom reports for them to count from and calculate totals.

This could raise some accounting eyebrows I suppose since these dollars are already expensed as far as Lawson is concerned. :nix:

From a financial perspective its a bad idea regardless of the tracking capability - ideally you are trying to limit the high dollar items hitting the inventory account - You also need to consider the resource issue - Do you have an expendable MM at your facility to oversee OR items? When things end up missing are you going to write them off to an additional offset variance account without hitting any expense? Seems like a lot of work to tie back to the GL on a monthly basis. Consider this when discussing with finance.

As a former Or materials person, and having worked in more then one hosp. I can honestly say, this is not worth the time it takes to set it up. Unless you have a team in the OR that is different then all the rest the idea of housing an inventory location is a monster of it's own. Here are my reasons not to do this.
1. you have staff pulling more then one item for the case- only because you need it in the event that one falls.
2. The extra items don't get returned to the shelf in time - so you are placing the order for that item that you might not need.
3. you have items that turn over weekly to a differnt vendor or style which means updating constant maintenance.
I hope these help you. and good luck in what ever you decide to do.

Hi Linda,
Thanks for the feedback. I totaly agree with you. I plan to use all the feed back to present the issues to my superiors. I run the storeroom, I have 1600 items in my inventory and it's a fair amount of work to effectively manage it. The O.R. is talking about over 7000 items and only 3 material people to manage it.

Rich

This is very difficult and if you are not picking and putting away your over picked supplies in a timely manner, it is a night mare. If I can be of any further help, feel free to send me a email directly to me and I will answer anything I can to help you.
I had a staff of 4 and we had 2 million in inventory when I left, and we would never had handled this undertaking.
lphillips@wvhcs.org

Rich,

All the folks here are pointing out the right issues - take it from me, I've handled creating our OR as an inventory location, and perpetualizing it. The results are mixed...

The largest obstacle is the mindset of the surgical staff - you need to educate them, make them aware that they are responsible for their own inventory, and if it's not tracked correctly, it won't be there for them when they need it.

We have two (almost) full time people in the OR whose primary responsibility is maintaining the inventory, and a charge nurse who is involved as well. Even with that, you will still have issue after issue.

If you want more information on our arrangement, feel free to ask for details.