Having to manage different types of expensive mobile hospital equipment is both challenging and time-consuming. A substantial amount of asset items are lost, stolen or misplaced (within different departments or loaned to other hospitals), heavily affecting productivity every day. More than thirty percent of nurses spend a minimum of 1 hour per shift searching for hospital equipment. The average medium hospital owns 20,000 pieces of hospital equipment/assets with the NHS losing £13,000,000 from equipment lost, misplaced or stolen each year (Freedom Information replies from 113 NHS Trusts).
30 PERCENT OF NURSES spend at least an hour a shift searching for equipment.
(According to a study by non-profit GS1 UK) https://unsplash.com/@tcrawlers
Having all hospital assets tagged means it is easier to find the current items the hospital owns and reduces additional rentals and purchases. The condition of the hospital assets can also be identified when the items are tagged and details recorded when tracking the hospital equipment to ensure servicing is done in a timely manner so the equipment is not out of use at any time.
- Always ensure that assets and specific categories of hospital equipment are clear, indicating both room-level (ward/theatre/stock room) location
- Improve and shorten the patient time in hospital by reducing equipment search times for nurses
- Monitor with location-based work orders that improve usage of equipment and reduce unnecessary rental expenses
- Alert security before equipment leaves a hospital and get it logged to prevent theft or misplacement within other locations
- Automate missing equipment alerts after a set period of time and alerts for servicing equipment to increase the availability
- Track asset movement history to identify process improvements and specific department requirements