Inventory: A Tool to Improve Hospital Management

Manichean discussion between manage high inventory volumes and models where these are fully
removed, is interesting in a theoretical way. However, in practice, holding too much inventory
generates high costs, but a missing could generate important risks on the operation, concerning
service quality, and in the case of hospitals, these could even cause the patient’s death. On the
other hand, a hospital manages thousands of items with very different characteristics, since is
possible to find low cost products with high rotation, to high cost products with low rotation.
Keeping in mind the different behaviour of products, is hazardous and unsuitable to manage
unique inventory models. For this reason, the Hospital Universitario Mayor MEDERI, side by
side with the Logistics and Production program of the Universidad del Rosario, improve studies
in the way to create instruments that allow to do a better inventory management, looking for a
service quality improvement and a cost reduction linked with control, storage and dispensation of
products and supplies simultaneously in different services, keeping in mind the distinctive
features of each product and its importance in the process.