Ok....So I have no idea how to go about improving my inventory. Can some one tell me how I am supposed to be using the 80/20 report from my wholesaler, and maybe direct me to some other good reports I could look at to help me?

City, State: community

Years as a Buyer: 2

Oh this isn't a dumb question at all! This is a constant issue in my facility and I'm sure we're not alone...

80/20 reports show you your top 80% of purchased items, I always run that but request 100% of my purchases so I can sort by units or dollars and see what I'm buying less often. Are you trying to cut back inventory or just see what you're bringing in?

A good report to use if you're trying to cut back on inventory is a report that we call our Revenue Report, which I use to say "ok guys, this is on the shelf, we've billed for ONE in the past year, help me justify why we still keep it" which helps with some items. Critical drug items you may only use once a year but need to have it around (Antivenin, etc.) but others are just a drug from yesteryear that people insist on keeping for no real purpose.

If Mike is still checking in - this would be a really good topic to bring up in one of the "buyer issues" sessions, if its not already on the agenda. I'm still pretty new at this and any ideas/advice I can get would be great too.

See y'all soon!!

Name of Facility: CVMC

City, State: Teaching hospital - 270 beds

Years as a Buyer: 1+

so what happens if you pull said item from the shelves and then a doctor orders it? Do you order it back in?

I am struggling with the fact that we also fill outpatient scrips for hospice patients and blister pack for our skilled nursing facility. The skilled nursing facility is it own animal, not really completely operating on the hospitals formulary.

City, State: community

Years as a Buyer: 2

We tell them that its no longer on formulary and that it will be in the next morning with our order and we order the smallest size/form possible. We give them therapeutic alternatives that we have available, but if they still insist on that drug, then we order it as a non-formulary drug in that days order.

When I got here, we stocked everything... every strength, etc. because one time, Dr. so and so ordered it but if you do that, whats the point of even having a formulary? We're still too loosey goosey about buying everything under the sun in my opinion, but my hospital aims to please the physicians at the sake of the budget so its a somewhat losing battle for me, although I get my small victories here and there...

Name of Facility: CVMC

City, State: Teaching hospital - 270 beds

Years as a Buyer: 1+

oh Coleen-how I feel your pain! We too stocked everything in every strength and we used to fill op rx's for own employees, which had a seprate formulary. We just stoped that in may and I am trying to get all the outpatient crap off the shevles and all the huge 1000 tab bottles we dont need any more.

The pharmacists here are too quick to order anything a doctor requests with out offering a formulary substitution.

We finally had a small victory this year. We got approval from P&T for a theraputic substitution for Protonix, which is our prefered. We can automatically substitute any order for any other med in that class with protonix now! It was a huge battle. But my boss just took the potiential savings to the head honchos and they listened!

Our doctors here are very stubborn and we also have the aim to please attitude about them. I mean they get free food in the cafetiera for chrissakes!

City, State: community

Years as a Buyer: 2

Managing inventory is a daily challenge. We have an excellent clinical pharmacist that works with DR.s to get them to switch to a formulary item. Does not always happen and we either get it the next morning or we see about getting some locally (depending on the situation).

One of the other things I do here is to work on Omnicell pars. They seem to grow and by looking at the Omnicell purely from a #'s point of view shows a path way to reduce par's. I make the financial analysis and then have an appropriate clinical person look at it to make sure if in an emergency, we would have enough.

Another thing I do is have my wholesaler .com set up so that all my items that are on GPO contract are in red and all others are black. Where there are alternatives I check on the price and then make sure with the director and clinical pharmacist that they agree on the equivalency, then we make the switch. This transaction is fast. Also, I check all alternatives at least once a month. There is a lot of changing that happens, so I check periodically.

Also, I would recommend that you keep track of all savings you find this way on an excel spreadsheet. I have a whole stack of various reports I do for the Director that assists us in keeping track of the money.

I am looking forward to learning more ways to find and keep track of the money at the conference.

Name of Facility: St. Francis Health Center

Years as a Buyer: 4 in health care, 25 in hard goods

It is always so encouraging to me to read these postings and know that I'm not alone!!! There are many universal problems that we all struggle with and I, at least, sometimes forget that most of you are dealing with the same things I am. I think we should get together and compile a book--we could all retire and hand our headaches to somebody else nutty enough to do our job!

We are supposed to have a closed formulary, too--what a joke .

RPhs are just to apathetic to call docs who order non-formulary drugs (they might get yelled at and damge their fragile little egos!)to tell them we don't have the drug they ordered. We have 2 great local drugstores here in town that we have reciprocal agreements with. They borrow from us and we from them.

Second action is to tell the MD/RN to get the family to bring non-formulary drugs from home. We do have to verify what it is, but it is less hassle doing that than ordering things that we'll use 1 of and let the rest outdate on the shelf. These always seem to be for the Medicare/Medicaid/self pay patients and we have little of recovering any charges.

Have a great week-end and enjoy the conference, all you lucky folks who get to attend. I'll make it there some year!

Ruth

Name of Facility: PORTER

City, State: acute care

Years as a Buyer: 9

An 80/20 report shows the 20% of the top drugs with the 80% of your money.

It is hard but wholesalers like Cardinal have the tool built in.
I run the report at 80% and use their MIN/MAX utility to establish an order frequency. Min/Max allows me to assign Min/Max settings to selected items.
I have been able to reduce the inventory by a considerable amount.

I kind of divide the list into 3 parts. The first one is "A" which is where most of my money is spent. The second one is "B" which consists of meds that one that I try to order on a weekly basis. And the last one is "C" which consists of meds that I look to order on a need-to-order basis or a monthly order.

This system was taught to me by a dear friend and allows me to optimize my inventory effectively.

We currently have a team of clinical pharmacists who round with our attending and resident physicians and influence them to use medication on the formulary.

Name of Facility: Kern Medical Center

City, State: Teaching hospital Trauma II center

Years as a Buyer: 4