Customer Spotlight: Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust

August 24, 2021

How One Hospital Transformed its Supply Chain by Implementing a Complete Clinical Traceability Solution

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Hospital systems today are continually challenged by emerging diseases, supply chain gaps, overworked clinicians, unwieldy technology, data overload, and increased patient demands – not to mention COVID-19’s unique and devastating effects. Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust is one hospital that recognized it needed to make significant changes in the face of increased challenges.

Let’s take a look at how Bath Hospital overcame inventory management issues and was able to free up clinicians’ time to deliver better patient care.

Inadequate Outcomes from Poor Clinical Traceability and an Inefficient Supply Chain

The Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust is a major acute-care hospital in Bath, England. The hospital has 565 beds and is the area’s major accident and emergency hospital. Being a busy hospital meant that a lot of clinician time was spent on tedious tasks like data entry in the EHR, which took away from the patient experience.

In 2017, the Trust was part of a Scan4Safety preparedness assessment, which showed a clear opportunity to improve inventory management and supply chain practices. The hospital had issues with cumbersome scanning procedures, excess wastage, poor clinical traceability between the supplier and warehouse, and duplicate and siloed data that took effort to contextualize.

To address the areas for improvement and achieve significant financial and clinical benefits, the Trust decided to undertake a significant change initiative to redesign its clinical supply chain.

Looking for an Effective and Intuitive Solution to Drive Value

The Trust recognized its need for a best-in-class clinical traceability technology and a proven partner that could understand its needs and meet its requirements throughout its change initiative.

The ideal solution for the clinical team needed to be intuitive and easy-to-use. It had to have the ability to establish complete traceability from the supplier all the way to the patient bedside and capture utilization data at the point of care – reducing wastage and lowering costs. The solution also needed to work for all areas of the hospital in order to gain definitive cross-departmental buy-in and seamlessly integrate with other existing systems and processes.

How the Right Solution Improved Margins and Boosted Patient Satisfaction

The Trust chose the Genesis solution to help it transform the health of its clinical supply chain while empowering clinicians and protecting patients.

By implementing the Genesis solution, the Trust introduced powerful automation and insight into its workflows to dramatically simplify processes, reduce wastage, enhance patient safety, and improve the flow of supplies across The Clinical Supply Lifecycle™.

Some of the capabilities that were employed included:

• The ability to scan once and capture everything. By capturing everything with a single scan, the Trust reduced cumbersome scanning procedures and duplicate data while gaining knowledge on everything from the consumables utilized to the patient, the service line, the procedure, and the clinician.
• Clinical traceability established across the patient journey. The Trust used the Genesis solution to establish complete clinical traceability from the supplier to the warehouse, storage areas, point of care, and more. They were then able to better understand utilization, optimize supply allocation, make informed decisions, and protect patients.
• A seamless integration for a single, optimized data flow. The Trust needed a solution that integrated with and complemented its financial and clinical systems already in place. By interfacing with these systems, Genesis helped the Trust eliminate duplicate data entry and establish a fully optimized data flow.

Once the Genesis solution was in place, the Trust immediately began seeing results. An easy-to-use platform provided clear data and informed crucial decision making and planning. Less waste and more revenue followed. And Genesis helped the team every step of the way, as it engaged its specialists to form a true, value-added partnership with the Trust.

The clinical team was pleased with how the solution led to increased productivity and less time wasted. “Genesis is the ultimate win for clinical staff. Not only does it save us significant time, it is also instrumental to protecting our patients and helping us make more informed, data-driven decisions,” said Heidi Cox, Specialty Manager for Cardiology. “The solution enables efficiency and insight that we never thought possible.”

COVID-19’s Effect on the Supply Chain Transformation Initiative

COVID-19 added an additional hurdle to the Trust’s efforts for change. In the middle of its ongoing supply chain transformation initiative, the global COVID-19 pandemic started. The very contagious nature of the virus created an overwhelming demand for PPE, and the Trust – like other hospitals around the world – desperately needed accurate insights into PPE stock levels across the hospital.

When the pandemic began, the Trust’s clinical team was still manually counting PPE stock, but the virus required almost quadrupling the amount of PPE SKUs within its system. To manage all of the additional PPE and equipment needed to fight COVID-19, the Trust implemented Genesis Protect, which is a solution that automates the PPE inventory counting process while providing key indicators of stock health and PPE availability to decision-makers. This insight allowed the team to gather and route supplies to the proper locations efficiently and better prepare for future PPE demands.

The Key to Hospital System Success is Supply Chain Efficiency

For hospitals, the supply chain is truly the most important factor for success. Even if there are current gaps or wastages, there is always potential to get back on track. Choosing and implementing the right solution can make the difference in a hospital that provides the best care with the highest patient satisfaction and revenue, and one that misses the mark on potential growth and success.

Do you need a clinical traceability solution that can help you manage your inventory better? Contact Genesis Today.