Month: April 2020

How To Do Efficient Stock Planning In The Hospital Pharmacy?

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In any company, stock management is an aspect of great importance for the success of the venture, and in hospital pharmacies that is no different. In many countries, the stock of medicines is responsible for 5 to 20% of hospital budgets, and for a good management of these resources, it is essential to reduce failures, reduce costs and guarantee the storage of the necessary medicines for patients.

healthcare-equipment-planners

Inventory management activities:

Inventory management can be classified into two types of activities:

– Operational activities: with focus on the movement control of products, registration of movements, receipts, conferences, warehousing and distribution

– Strategic activities: seeking a more efficient replenishment, through the analysis of distribution and stock data.

Step-by-step inventory management:

To control stock and ensure minimum levels of operation, while keeping costs on budget, it is important to follow four basic management principles, easily employed by hospital planners and medical equipment consultants:

  1. Planning

Efficient stock planning by hospital equipment planners consists of collection of information on financial resources and consumption needs, and based on these data determine the distribution needs of materials and supplies, plan the service capacity and manage the stock of products.

  1. Catering

Includes the purchase, receipt, inspection, storage and distribution of medications and supplies on demand. It is important, at this stage, to keep up-to-date price records, carry out constant evaluations of product quality and supplier certification, and keep an eye on contractual requirements and payment terms.

  1. Execution

Consists of requesting and receiving materials, testing products, storing medications and supplies, packaging and distribution. A fundamental aspect of the execution of stock management is the evaluation of the control system, the furniture and equipment available and the procedures that act in the scheduling of purchases and their receipt.

  1. Distribution

It is related to the implementation of orders, control of the database of medicines and patients, development of labels and packaging necessary for distribution, and detailed registration of prescriptions and distribution of products.

Important aspects of inventory management

The planning of the stock of a medical pharmacy by hospital planners in India must take into account various factors:

– standardization of medications: to maintain a stock level that meets all hospital needs, it is important to invest in the standardization of records, considering the medical prescription, the distribution of the medicine and the financial billing. The lack of standardization of processes is one of the biggest errors in hospital management.

– Suppliers history: In addition to the basic information on the company, the registry of the medicine suppliers must have records of the payment terms, their financial practices and the most advantageous medicines (in values and quantities) for the hospital.

– Parameter calculation: considering the stock as a fluctuating asset, it is important to have up-to-date data on the need for medicines and supplies, considering the minimum and maximum quantity of each material and medication in emergencies, and calculating the parameters of stock.

– Control of Government: entity responsible for the control of all medicines and hospital materials manufactured, through the batch number, date of validity and barcode.

-Purchase process: With the help of specialized programs, it is possible to filter suppliers and place orders based on criteria such as price, payment terms and supplier relationship.

– medication individualization: a common process in hospital pharmacies, which consists of dividing the medications into fractional units, keeping in each fraction the information regarding the batch, date of validity and other characteristics for control.

Efficient stock management by health care equipment planners is essential to avoid failures such as patient medication, reduce losses related to the expiration date of products, reduce costs with the purchase of medicines and supplies, and guarantee good care for all patients. The investments made in the planning and control of stocks have a guaranteed return, both in the aspects of excellence in care as well as in the financial part, and are essential for good hospital administration.

How To Create A Strategic Planning For Hospitals?

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Hospital management faces complex challenges that influence your short and long-term goals on a large scale. Without well-structured strategic planning, a modern health establishment may be at the mercy of its own complexities, and its services and prospects may be severely compromised and impaired. In times of economic instability in the country, the ability to make well-founded decisions and anticipate difficulties is critical to the survival and sustainability of any hospital.

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For the success of a strategic planning it will be necessary for the hospital space planners to clearly formulate ‘the intended future’. In addition to that, it is essential that all sectors of the organization are also speaking the same language.

The key points for creating objective, practical, flexible strategic planning aligned with ambitious and challenging goals. Hospital management consultancy services can take a hospital organization to a new level of stability, differentiated immersion in the market and efficiency in health services.

Success monitoring – organization and accurate information


The first step towards formulating effective planning for hospital management is the acquisition of accurate and qualified information. The hospital needs to have tools available to permanently monitor its performance in all areas. The financial sector is in need of immediate responses on expenses with the acquisition and maintenance of equipment, payments to professional teams, costs of treatments, hospitalizations and medications, as well as current and future billings.

The established objectives, aligned to the sectoral indicators, hospital planners in India will diagnose and demonstrate the quality of the services currently offered by the hospital: mortality and morbidity rate, infections associated with therapies, agility in critical conditions, among others.

Another important factor is that all these data contribute harmoniously to central hospital management.In many cases, all information is fragmented into poorly functioning nuclei – leaving the administration unaware of what is really going on in the hospital. Many times, the modernization and restructuring of information management allows the formation of a clear image of all the facets and dynamics of a hospital establishment, which will create a solid basis for realistic and applicable future planning.

Analysis of weaknesses and opportunities


The management of a hospital – like any other undertaking – must be able to perceive its qualities as well as its weaknesses and how these characteristics are aligned with its internal visions. In some cases, it should be evaluated in which area the hospital should focus its energies and resources; whether it is, what is already working well and what can improve or what is deficient and can get worse. Having a sincere approach to the problems that affect the quality of the hospital necessarily implies creating a well-defined platform that favors the inclusion of innovative and efficient solutions, investing time in opportunities that have never been seen before.
The administration needs a critical analysis of the market sector in which they are immersed and what in fact is the weight that the establishment has in this. The particular characteristics of such a market share should always be taken into account by hospital designers & planners when planning future hospital actions.

Anticipation and flexibility


With a solid internal and external data system and a clear vision of the market and the aspirations of the administrative area, the hospital manages to survive innumerable obstacles that commonly affect the health sector.

In this way, hospital planners and medical equipment consultants manages to project its strengths and responsibilities in the future in an intelligent and optimistic way, applying possible resources to what is really believed.

How Can The Architecture Of Hospitals Influence The Lives Of Patients?

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The structure and architecture of a healthcare center can improve the lives of patients. The new conception of medical care facilities runs away from monotonous spaces, betting on the interpretation of color and light. In this way, the spaces influence the mood and the own perception of the body of the patients, in fact, it can help people to recover faster.

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In the past, the design of these facilities focused more on supporting the patient care team than the patient itself. Many of the decisions made in the design, execution and commissioning phase conditioned the greater efficiency of the services in the different areas of the hospital. These buildings, in addition to being beautiful and powerful examples of architecture designed for people, are functional edifices.

Hospital architecture has undergone a change in its functional approach and the hospital is conceived as a sum of spaces that tries to transmit healthy experiences, rather than as a health container space. The objective of hospital consultancy in India is to improve the internal processes in which different areas of the hospital participate in a way that results in their greater efficiency and improved quality services.

In this sense, top healthcare consulting firms in India along with hospital designers convene strategic workshop in which attractive ideas are investigated on how to integrate multidisciplinary co-creation spaces in the future hospital. It is important to achieve a perfect match between the technical and organizational aspects and bear in mind that each function requires its own space.

The integration of patients, health and non-health personnel in a flexible building that combines landscape, natural light, renewable energy and the latest technologies are the peculiarities of XXI century hospital project consultants in India.

Savings and Energy Efficiency

The importance of building energy-efficient hospitals by introducing efficiency indicators, together with those of quality and adequacy, generate differential value. The variables that affect the energy consumption of a hospital are those that share an optimal consumption value, which allows reducing costs, contributing to better economic management of the hospital center and greater care for the environment.

Hospital management consulting company considers Integrated Building Design, a process that integrates people, business structures and procedures from the pre-design phase to the operation and maintenance of the building, which helps to achieve greater operational reliability, reduce maintenance costs and improve the energy efficiency of the system.

Air conditioning and lighting are the applications that concentrate the most on energy consumption and increased energy optimization. The integration of passive solar air conditioning in the design phase helps to reduce the building’s air conditioning needs. Similarly, the arrangement of large windows, allows to maximize the natural lighting of the interior. This light source, in addition to reducing electricity consumption, has been shown to accelerate patient recovery and improved worker productivity and responsiveness.

The accessibility of the facilities determines their subsequent maintenance. The facilities must be accessible and allow the expansion and modification of the same with flexible and modular structures.

The patient experiences

Today, the patient has become the center of healthcare. The individuality of the patient and his humanization holds a special importance.

Some examples that are already being experimented are how to improve the user experience in waiting rooms and convert the downtime of patients and companions into useful times or how to facilitate the mobility of people in the hospital in order to make the orientation and travel around the hospital, to reduce the levels of uncertainty and anxiety of patients and companions.

Actions such as the incorporation of volunteers in tasks to accompany patients, noise reduction campaigns aimed at workers, the wide range of services for hospitalized patients or the elimination of payment on hospitalization televisions are already taking place.

Today, the patient experience is understood as a tool for improvement in hospitals. These have become a real ecosystem with access to patients, families, and experts. To collect their opinion and better understand their experience, participatory design techniques are applied to all members, listening to their needs related to the products, services, spaces and platforms of the hospital.

Hospital Architecture- A Therapeutic Element

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Science is in charge of the prediction, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of diseases. For its part, hospital architecture firms in India are responsible for developing the physical infrastructure to optimize medical processes in order to improve care times.

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Previously, hospital architecture was conceived only to provide medical care, so the buildings had pure shapes, and their design was purely functional in a way that responded to the norm and needs. However, the design of modern hospital architecture (born from medical evidence and research as well as having special attention to every detail that makes up the medical processes and daily use of the facilities) has technology and its constant evolution as its main ally.

Hospital architecture is now seen as a therapeutic element since it aids in reducing the stress in patients, resulting in better recovery process. That’s how hospital consultancy services in Delhi have become a differentiating and important element to consider in medical sector.

Why not before and now yes?

It is important to point out that earlier, the variety of materials that complied with the standard of hospital infrastructure was limited; the construction systems were very rigid and the designs were purely functional.

Fortunately, today the progress in each of these aspects and the variety of possibilities offered by the market in terms of specifications, construction systems, equipment and furniture has enabled healthcare consultancy in India to design with the well-being of patients, their companions and medical personnel.

Understanding the importance of light, thermal comfort, silence, landscaping and interior design in a hospital is vital because they are the starting point to achieve that differentiating aspect. For a hospital, medical care equipment and innovative infrastructure guarantees a greater influx of patients. But to get there (innovative infrastructure) the implementation of smart materials and modern technologies are the “vehicle” to make it feasible and to create designs that meet the standard and function.

Nowadays it is possible to guarantee natural lighting (knowing how to control its incidence in spaces), provide thermal comfort (ensuring adequate ventilation), offer interior and exterior landscaping through physical and visual contact with terraces and gardens (guaranteeing that there will be no risk infection and contamination for patients), control noise (to make recovery spaces quieter) to the point of “hiding” the medical equipment (which is not aesthetically pleasing) since this often intimidates and scares the patient .

It is clear that hospital project consultants in India will continue to evolve, thanks to technological advances and that is why more and more hospitals are joining this architectural revolution almost taken out of a science fiction movie. And is that so or did you imagine that one day it would be possible to walk among nature in a hospital? Could you work on the laptop comfortably in a waiting room?

Healthcare architecture firms in India have taken an exceptional turn to the conception that previously prevailed so that you will see more and more hospitals that, in addition to meeting a primary need, will seem almost like a majestic work of architecture. It only remains to say that beyond the institutional image that modern architecture provides to hospitals, what should be emphasized the most is that the patient is dignified in such a way that despite being ill, he feels together with his family in a friendly place that makes his stay pleasant and peaceful.

5 Current Trends In Hospital Infrastructure

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With the humanization of the hospital infrastructure, healing environments are achieved that refer to the interaction of the five senses with the atmosphere. For this reason, natural light, exterior views, privacy, lighting control, colors, cleanliness, climate, sounds (noises), accessibility, etc., are essential to achieve a welcoming and pleasant environment for patients and staff assistance.

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Health infrastructure today is one of the most complex challenges for healthcare architecture firms in India; the hospital building is the most difficult to design due to the complexity of the technologies that are integrated, and the expectations of patients and families, which combined with those of healthcare processes, are the input to design a healthcare environment.

Here are some important aspects to take into account in the coherent development of an infrastructure project for health use:

  1. Hospital architectural design must be based on evidence

It is based on defining the objectives of the hospital, collecting relevant information, exploring/ interpreting the reliable research that supports the objective, innovating to use of knowledge to design and obtain the best possible results and developing hypotheses about the expected results.

Establish a baseline for performance indicators, and monitor the design implementation and construction of post-occupation databases to measure results.

  1. The environment as a healing element

The perfect balance between structure and nature is one of the great challenges for healthcare management consulting in India, it requires exquisite style, respect for nature and the site of the project.

It should be considered not to plant trees near the hospitalization areas if the growth of branches and roots behaves horizontally, as well as choosing species that do not produce fruits, flowers or seeds, since these attract birds and insects, which promote the dispersal of fungi, molds, spores and in some cases simulate the role of vectors. The different modalities of landscaping installation must be valid and previously tested, so that the operation of the center does not generate problems such as:

  • Technical difficulties for maintenance and irrigation
  • Leaks
  • Unplanned growth and location
  • Damage to structure and networks by roots and branches
  1. Focus on efficiency, effectiveness and patient safety

Hand-washing is the most basic and important step in hygiene protocols, so it is the responsibility of the hospital management consultancy services to implement a design where the sinks are perfectly located, with the necessary accessibility and visibility for healthcare and medical personnel.

  1. Include sustainable design practices

These are design and construction practices that greatly reduce or eliminate the negative impact of buildings on the environment and its occupants:

  • Sustainable location
  • Protection and efficiency in the use of water
  • Energy efficiency and use of renewable energy
  • Conservation of natural resources
  • Indoor environmental quality

Sustainable design can contribute up to 2.5 days in advance as a benefit, as an impact of the green building on the care process. These practices include multiple alternatives of efficiency and energy saving, such as geothermal cooling systems for air conditioning, injecting cold water to the depth of the earth and recovering it at low temperature. The challenge is to find innovative and dynamic systems that allow each other to be potentiated and thus achieve maximum energy savings.

  1. Humanization of infrastructure

The creation of healing environments refers to the interaction of the five senses with the atmosphere. Hospital consulting firms in India concern the importance of architectural design, natural light, exterior views, privacy, lighting control, colors, cleanliness, climate, sounds (noises), accessibility and ease of communication,construction materials, finishes and furniture, which are essential to achieve a welcoming and pleasant environment for patients and healthcare staff.