Healthcare is yet another industry apart from the IT industry that involves a humongous number of assets. Diagnostic and laboratory equipment, surgical gear, medicines, and even IT assets such as computers and computer-aided machinery form a significant investment in a hospital. A large scale multi-specialty hospital will often find it challenging to manually keep track of such assets physically placed across different departments.

A Rising Necessity

According to a Mordor Intelligence report, the asset management market in the healthcare industry is valued at 11.64B USD in 2019. At a 30% CAGR over a 2020-2025 forecast period, it’s expected to reach 56.2B USD by 2025.

In North America, where modern healthcare infrastructures are already well-established, is seeing a high demand for IT asset management solutions. This region is also one of the earliest adopters of modern IT infrastructure.

This rapid adoption will likely open up more opportunities within the industry, reduce costs, and improve the efficiency of operations. Asset management also aims to alleviate some of the industry’s most pressing issues:

Loss/Theft of Pharmaceuticals, Surgical Equipment, and Sensitive Data
Pharmaceuticals Shortages
Pharmaceuticals Overstocking
Inventory Sorting
Tracking Expiry Date of Medicine and Maintenance of Equipment
Generating Sales Reports and Bills

Benefits of Healthcare Asset Management Systems

Automated and Streamlined Asset Management

Using automated systems will help hospital workers track and trace inventory with more ease in their daily work routine. Hospitals can use NFC tags, RFID tags, and barcodes with unique ID numbers to accurately and effectively track and manage their assets (which can even include patients and the hospital staff).

Asset tagging using unique codes can help in the real-time tracking of the location and usage of assets within a hospital. This technology enables the asset registry to remain updated at all times. Designated users can scan each equipment with a barcode scanner to generate timely reports on history, usage, and maintenance schedules.

Doctors and nurses will significantly benefit from being able to scan barcode tags using smartphones or scanning devices to retrieve and store valuable data that passes a smart asset management system for accurate reporting.

Preventing Theft and Loss of Assets

Hospitals invest a lot on their assets as the quality of their assets can directly influence the quality of care they can provide to their patients. Some assets, such as implants, are tiny in size but are very expensive. Outsiders or even hospital staff can easily steal these costly devices.

Using a smart asset tracking system like Teqtivity can help prevent the chance for fraud or theft. Loss, breakage, or maintenance issues are immediately updated on the asset register to help the hospital authorities take immediate action.

Data theft is also a growing concern in the healthcare industry. While most of these incidents occur due to hacking, hardware, laptops, and mobile devices with sensitive information can also be stolen. Healthcare providers can reduce these incidents by using an efficient tracking system.

Efficient Asset Lifecycle Management

Some assets in a hospital such as pharmaceutical assets and surgical gear run out easily, even more so with the present Covid-19 pandemic. Keeping a check on the daily stock can help in timely restocking. It is also imperative to keep track of the expiry date of these, as assets used post expiry may result in fatal health conditions of patients. This asset tracking solution also lets you know when the maintenance of a diagnostic, laboratory, or surgical equipment is due.

Increased Visibility

Dealing with emergencies is very commonplace in the medical field, and healthcare providers should have the capability to check for equipment availability and important patient information quickly. Through proper management and tracking in the healthcare industry, the visibility of assets within the system increases. Workers can quickly find whatever asset they need while the hospital’s IT asset management system can keep track of it in real-time.

Conclusion

The ultimate aim of hospitals and the healthcare industry, in general, is to provide efficient patient care. By keeping track of inventory and assets through asset management systems, they can save a lot of time and money on manually doing it, which may be error-prone too. The profitability of hospitals is bound by having a systematic approach to acquire, plan, deploy, operate, maintain, and dispose of their assets.

Let’s discuss how we can secure your asset in the healthcare business, contact us today.

Asset Management in the Healthcare Industry