BACKGROUND

An estimated 30%-46% of hospital budgets are spent on logistics activities such as moving medications, supplies, devices, charts, and surgical instruments through the supply chain to where they are needed at the point of care. At the same time nurses are only able to spend approximately 31% of their day on direct patient care due to non-value-added logistics and administrative responsibilities. In addition, the downstream cost of ineffective logistics is enormous as patient safety issues often result when the right medication isn't available or when staff are unavailable or continually interrupted by poor processes.

Similar issues can exist in any organization that deploys a supply chain to move items from one location to another. The human attention that needs to be paid to the supply chain processes will always draw attention away from other potentially more valuable activities.

What is needed is an improved system to enable staff at hospitals or staff at other entities to spend more time on more valuable human-related activities such as direct patient care.

