How we find, evaluate, and buy our medical supplies continues to evolve. Arguably, as technology adds new capabilities, so too will the ways we shop for medical supplies, whether we are a private person buying for a medical supply we need at home, or whether we are responsible for purchasing the supplies needed by our hospital employer.
Big changes have disrupted how and where we find our medical supplies. I predict this will never cease.
Here are recent modes of purchasing medical supplies that will be around for a while, and will evolve into even more robust processes in the coming years. The good news is that these changes make it easier for the buyer, whether private person or hospital, to make informed decisions quickly and conveniently.
1. How Robots Are Enhancing Telemedicine
Learn how robots are creating more, not less, human contact possible in health care delivery. More »
2. Where Can I Shop for Home Medical Supplies?
We may have it so ingrained in our mind to drive over to the local big box pharmacy chain store to shop for our medical supplies that we need at home. But don't miss the opportunity to shop online at them too.
These same brick-and-mortar stores have robust online catalogs that allow you to search quickly and conveniently for what you need on their website. You can also compare prices much faster. So the benefit can really keep more money in your pocket.
And the stores do incentivize people to buy from their online stores by offering discount sales. More »
3. Medical Supermarket and Their YouTube Advantage
If you're a medical practice manager, you'll want to learn about a company called Medical Supermarket. They've created a company designed to streamline the medical supply order and inventory process for you.
In this linked article, you'll see how they've created their own YouTube Channel with a series of videos that explain who they are, why they exist, how they can help you, and how the process works. More »
4. Industry Update! Looking For Kimberly-Clark Health Care?
One major change that happened in 2014 was when a long-time industry supplier, Kimberly-Clark Health Care, spun off from Kimberly-Clark and changed its name in the process to Halyard Health.
Same products, with a gradual shift in brand design and catalog names, but now with a smaller company with no parent corporation to answer to. This should mean a more nimble medical supplier that will try new things in the changing frontier of medical supply delivery as well as product innovation. More »
5. Improving Surgical Procedure-Pack Design
If operating room inventory is your focus, then you care about efficiency and accuracy. Medline has created a surgical pack design that not only allows you to order pre-packaged surgical procedure kits, but also color-coded their labels so that the kits can be stored quickly, and pulled quickly. More »
6. Hospital Logistics in the Age of Robotics
Another way robots are helping health care is by taking on some of the mundane work formerly done by nurses. A major waste of nursing resources occurs when nurses, who are skilled in hands on patient care and comfort, are diverted from this mission because they are tasked to search for and deliver medical supplies from one location to another.
In this article, you'll see that some hospitals are starting to let robots do that, thus freeing up nurses to do spend more time doing what we all want them to do: tend to the patients in their care. More »