Supply chain expense savings reductions are the backbone of all supply chain departments, but unfortunately there are less and less savings being generated by most healthcare organizations’ price and standardization initiatives. That’s why savings beyond price is the future of supply chain expense management. However, to generate these brand-new utilization savings, innovative technology is needed to identify, monitor, and then manage your clinical supply utilization misalignments (CSUM) or the wasteful and inefficient consumption, misuse, misapplication, or value mismatches in your supply streams. Once you decide to attack these unwanted and unneeded utilization costs, evaluating, selecting, and deploying new clinical supply utilization management software can be daunting. Here are 5 deployment best practices we recommend to help you on this journey:
Clinical Supply Utilization Management Software Deployment
1. Establish Your CSUM Software Requirements. Nothing can be more important than identifying your CSUM software requirements. Will the software be on-premises, Cloud, or subscription? How many locations and users will make use of the software? Will your reports have fixed content or be customizable? Otherwise, you risk not buying enough features and functions or too little to optimize the full benefits of your CSUM software.
2. Understand Your Customers’ Needs. How will the clinical supply utilization management software serve your customers? Does your staff have the right skills and knowledge to support the software? How fast can you implement the software? What are the expectations with future enhancements or upgrades from the application provider? The best way to avoid miscommunication, missteps, or mistakes is to form a CSUM team of customers, stakeholders, and experts to help you define your exact software needs.
3. Create Budgetary Parameters. During the early planning days of your CSUM project you need to establish a budget for your software initiative. This budget would include staff time, hardware, maintenance, upgrades, or subscription cost over three to five years. Naturally, you also need to perform a cost/benefit analysis prior to purchasing or entering into a subscription service for the software.
4. Incorporate Security at Every Level. It is a given that your new clinical supply utilization management software should incorporate the best state-of-the-art security best practices, such as, security standards, data backup frequency, disaster recovery plan, etc. This criteria can be assessed with the help of your IT department.
5. Integration Compatibility. The last step in your deployment of your CSUM software is to make sure your new software can easily integrate with your existing systems (unless it is a subscription service that doesn’t require integration). We suggest a pilot test to ensure that your new software conforms to your requirements, performs as advertised, and is smoothly integrated throughout your healthcare organization.
Your CSUM Software Plan
Purchasing, leasing, or subscribing to a new clinical supply utilization management software isn’t a small task. It requires time, cooperation, and fortitude to get it right. However, without a defined deployment plan, as we have outlined above, it can quickly become a costly disaster. To paraphrase an old phrase, “Don’t buy any software without it.”
Source: Multi Channel Merchant Article by Tom Martucci, Chief Technology Officer, Consolidated Intermodal Technologies.
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