At Medical Equipment Resources & Consulting, we feel that the medical equipment inventory is at the center of all asset management efforts in a healthcare facility. You have to know what you have before you can understand how to best manage it going forward. This is why MERC has focused our services to provide comprehensive inventory services that empower customers to make better decisions with data and reduce capital spend.
Experience delivers results with efficiency
Occasionally we hear the idea of performing a medical equipment inventory in-house with facility staff. While from a 30,000 foot perspective this sounds effective, what is not considered is the time element and how this affects day-to-day operations. Can the team that is keeping your facility running really set aside their obligations to provide timely information without working overtime or letting other operational functions suffer? Will nursing staff have to add this to their patient care responsibilities when that is at the forefront of their concern? Will the biomedical department that is focused on the repair and safety of the equipment need to put that effort on hold? Working with an experienced inventory team allows for faster completion, more accurate results, and less disruption to your operations and ultimately the patients you serve.
Our Process
Conducting a medical equipment inventory can be a challenging task in a dynamic patient care environment, but using proven processes have helped our team effectively manage projects both large and small.
Goals & Objectives
We work with you to identify your needs and goals based upon your specific situation. Some common reasons for conducting an inventory include a new business relationship, transition to a new facility or expansion of the current, financial accounting, changes in ownership, new construction, and managing surplus assets.
Determine Scope
We work with you to determine a scope of services. This includes assessing the size and quantity of the facilities, types of assets involved in the inventory, asset value threshold, and time requirements to name a few. With this information, we create a custom-fit service plan to achieve the requested results.
Schedule & Preparation
As Alexander Graham Bell said, “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” We understand the challenges in a healthcare facility and work with you to coordinate an inventory that accommodates your patient census, surgery schedules, clinical schedules, and staff availability. MERC also prepares for specific site visit procedures and protocols to ensure on-site efficiency.
The Inventory
The time has come to do the work. MERC is dedicated to providing complete and thorough inventories that collect the necessary demographic data of your facilities assets. During the inventory, we can tag assets with a specific identification tag if that is requested. We also recommend that our team performs a condition assessment of the equipment during the inventory. This will help you gather more information about the status of your portfolio than just the basic manufacturer, model, serial number, etc.
Results
One of our company values is Accountability. To deliver the results you are looking for upon completion of the inventory is our responsibility to the customer. Again, our goal is to provide you with actionable data to more accurately manage your assets. This will give you the necessary information to make better financial decisions that reduce capital spend. The facility will also receive an updated asset list detailing your equipment and it’s location within your facility for better utilization and management.
Additional Inventory Services
Asset Ledger Reconciliation
Our team works with facility accounting to correlate the inventory with asset journal entries line by line. This approach helps accounting identify write-offs, discrepancies, and better allocate finances in the facility.
Virtual Inventory & Evaluation Workplan – VIEW
VIEW is the result of years of development working in our customer’s patient care environments, creatively combining technology with project management to lean-out the level of effort while delivering outstanding results. VIEW represents learned approaches that identify the customer’s care delivery environment and match the best blend of human performance and technology. In short, VIEW provides medical equipment inventories and assessments when circumstances and other influences require results with reduced or zero MERC personnel.
Over the past several years, we have implemented and successfully utilized several technology platforms to both inventory thousands of items as well as limit/eliminate on-site MERC staff. Not only does this decrease disruption to customer operations, but in some cases saves money, all while achieving typical results and deliverables.
VIEW is customized to your unique situation; utilizing technology to create a virtual inventory workplan is going to be part of your project plan when using MERC. Whether we are physically there or virtually there, whether you are providing acute care or ambulatory care, the results will be there.
