Requirements planning systems in the health care environment

Abstract

An important problem confronting health care administration is cost containment in hospitals. Much of the current high costs can be traced directly to outdated procedures in materials management leading to waste, excessive inventory and unnecessary obsolescence of expensive short shelf life items. In this paper, we illustrate how a modern requirements planning system for surgical supplies was developed for a private hospital in Houston and used to effectively hold inventory levels to the minimum required to support a detailed schedule of surgical procedures. We also discuss some specific problems involved in the transfer of manufacturing technology to the hospital setting.