Why You Should Use a Healthcare Asset Management System
Managing assets in a healthcare facility can be challenging, especially with the ever-growing number of medical equipment, devices, and supplies. Effective asset management in hospitals can help improve patient care, reduce costs, increase operational efficiency, and enhance regulatory compliance.
By utilizing a healthcare asset management system, healthcare providers can keep track of all assets, their location, maintenance status, and other critical information, ensuring that equipment is available when needed and in good working order.
In this increasingly complex and fast-paced healthcare environment, investing in a healthcare asset management system is essential for delivering high-quality care and staying competitive. Read on to learn more about why you should consider implementing a medical asset management system in your facility.
Medical Asset Management at a Glance
Medical asset management systems use various technologies and software applications to track important information regarding medical equipment, devices, and other materials. Many asset management systems rely on RFID technology to provide real-time location and updates about supplies and equipment.
Real-time information about the location and condition of medical assets helps healthcare providers make informed decisions about equipment usage and maintenance. Facilities management systems are essential for healthcare organizations to optimize asset utilization and improve patient outcomes.
The Benefits of Using a Healthcare Asset Management System
Implementing a healthcare asset management system offers numerous benefits for medical care providers. These include improved patient care, operational efficiency, reduced costs, enhanced regulatory compliance, and better decision-making. Learn more about these benefits below.
Better Patient Care
Effective healthcare asset management can help any hospital or medical provider improve patient care. Healthcare professionals are often preoccupied with tracking missing supplies and dealing with surprise equipment maintenance.
While missing equipment and unexpected repairs may be a nuisance to hospital staff, these issues can also directly impact patients. When supplies go missing, patients experience longer wait times because hospitals cannot accommodate their needs.
Medical asset management technologies can help healthcare providers know where their supplies are and when equipment needs routine maintenance. Simply put, less time tracking things down or scrambling to schedule maintenance means more time you can spend with your patients.
An Increase in Productivity
A study by the Nursing Times found that nurses spend at least an hour per shift looking for misplaced equipment. According to the survey, many items include pumps, drip stands, thermometers, keys, and mattresses– all essential to patient care.
Misplaced supplies and equipment directly impact productivity, as staff wastes numerous hours hunting down the bare necessities required to perform their duties. Knowing where items are and when maintenance will occur means fewer interruptions and more time given back to hospital personnel, increasing productivity.
Access to Insightful Reporting
Many hospital asset management systems enable healthcare facilities to analyze, monitor, and report on their supplies, equipment, and other assets. Regular reporting with a focus on compliance and asset reporting can help staff make better-informed decisions on asset lifecycles, maintenance, and regulations.
Safe Disposal of Medical Waste
Healthcare facilities regularly handle pharmaceuticals, biological waste, chemicals, and radioactive material. Healthcare asset management systems help these facilities fulfill their obligation to dispose of medical waste in the most environmentally friendly and sanitary way possible.
Asset management tools can help healthcare organizations standardize their waste management procedures to ensure that every object is disposed of safely and in accordance with regulatory requirements. Medical asset management systems also provide management with an audit trail to simplify tracking where personnel disposes of wasteful byproducts.
Drawbacks Of NOT Implementing An Asset Management System At Your Hospital
Misplaced Medical Equipment or Equipment Theft
Every hospital holds many expensive medical pieces of equipment which are in place to provide top-quality medical services to patients. Often, however, these devices are either already in use or cannot be found due to a lack of asset tracking. This can result in a disaster in cases of emergencies. By using asset management products like aktivu™ by Pycube, hospitals can easily locate all the assets in the facility and avoid huge financial losses from the loss of equipment.
Higher Operational Costs
When management and staff fail in tracking assets, operational costs go up because of wasted time and the need to replace lost assets. This especially affects time-sensitive procedures. Again, an asset management solution would allow staff to easily locate assets, saving both the staff’s time and the hospital’s money.
Discrepancies in Drugs and Consumables on Premises
Drugs and consumables are expensive assets that are often needed on an urgent basis. Failure in keeping track of drugs in the facility can lead to unwanted situations. Running short on drugs can result in panic in cases of emergencies, and improper tracking can result in drug theft from the facilities. All these situations can be avoided with aktivu™, which can keep records of each and every tagged drug on-premise, and also notify if the facility is running short on any.
Misplaced Samples
Misplacing or losing lab samples is another concern at large-sized hospitals, which can result in a late diagnosis of the patient’s condition – ultimately prolonging the patient’s recovery. Receiving the wrong diagnosis due to the wrong samples being analyzed is one of the most significant issues faced by patients in the US. Each sample is another asset that aktivu™ can track and locate to prevent any delays in recovery for the patient.
How Pycube Can Help
Having a good asset management system in place is the gateway to optimum functionality for any hospital. Pycube’s aktivu™ tracks assets, manages and monitors the assets’ lifecycle information, and provides valuable insights and actionable information for hospitals to utilize. Along with this, aktivu™ also generates reports by analyzing real-time updates on asset utilization and depreciation, workflow management, and even maintenance management. Use aktivu™ at your hospital to have fluid workflow functionality and improve your operational abilities.
With Pycube’s RFID medical asset tracking solutions, you can track the movement of vital medical equipment throughout your facilities and use this data to improve inventory management processes and more. Contact us for more information to get started.
