Abstract:Introduction. Pharmaceutical service optimization requires a comprehensive understanding of resource usage. The aim of the study is to analyze how Lean Healthcare principles can contribute toward turning a pharmacy service patient-centered and value oriented.
Methods. Understand how clinical pharmacists’ resources are effectively used by patients in an academic hospital using lean tools, such as value stream mapping and activity designation matrix, determine the amount of time each professional is involv… Show more
“…Optimization of pharmaceutical service requires a thorough understanding of resource use (Zanotto, 2020). Lean Healthcare is based on the principles of Lean for healthcare delivery and its true power, lies in continuously uncovering those hidden opportunities for improvement (ELS, 2019).…”
Stockouts occur when an entity runs out of inventory or when the customer cannot find the product at the point of sale. There is a lot of research that focuses on solving stockout problems in different industries; however, the amount of such research is very limited with respect to SMEs in the pharmaceutical sector. The purpose of this study was to analyze the main reasons for the existence of inventory problems in pharmaceutical SMEs and to develop a model to reduce them. The study unit was an SME dedicated to the commercialization of retail pharmaceutical products, which had an inventory availability of 76.5%, well below the industry average of 93%. Tools based on Lean Healthcare (Kraljic Matrix), EOQ and ABC-VED were used to reduce stockouts as the racks available at the SME were repositioned to provide the best distribution of medications in the pharmacy. In order to have better control of the available medications. As a result, inventory availability increased to 87.7%, the rate of unsatisfied orders decreased by 5.6% and the rate of unsatisfied orders decreased by 11.7%, thus increasing the probability of benefits for the entity and the customer. This encourages to implement the tools in similar cases to improve inventory availability in the pharmaceutical industry, especially in SMEs.
“…Optimization of pharmaceutical service requires a thorough understanding of resource use (Zanotto, 2020). Lean Healthcare is based on the principles of Lean for healthcare delivery and its true power, lies in continuously uncovering those hidden opportunities for improvement (ELS, 2019).…”
Stockouts occur when an entity runs out of inventory or when the customer cannot find the product at the point of sale. There is a lot of research that focuses on solving stockout problems in different industries; however, the amount of such research is very limited with respect to SMEs in the pharmaceutical sector. The purpose of this study was to analyze the main reasons for the existence of inventory problems in pharmaceutical SMEs and to develop a model to reduce them. The study unit was an SME dedicated to the commercialization of retail pharmaceutical products, which had an inventory availability of 76.5%, well below the industry average of 93%. Tools based on Lean Healthcare (Kraljic Matrix), EOQ and ABC-VED were used to reduce stockouts as the racks available at the SME were repositioned to provide the best distribution of medications in the pharmacy. In order to have better control of the available medications. As a result, inventory availability increased to 87.7%, the rate of unsatisfied orders decreased by 5.6% and the rate of unsatisfied orders decreased by 11.7%, thus increasing the probability of benefits for the entity and the customer. This encourages to implement the tools in similar cases to improve inventory availability in the pharmaceutical industry, especially in SMEs.
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