Value based care reimbursement models challenge healthcare providers to provide higher quality care at a lower cost. As a result, many hospitals are looking more closely at supply chain management to drive quality, safety and long-term value. Yet, according to a Cardinal Health and SERMO survey completed earlier this year, 78% of hospital staff still work within a manual inventory management process for some part of their supply chain. That means, in a world where historical data insights drive improvements, access to legacy supply chain data may not be easy to come by. At best, legacy data pertinent to supply, demand, utilization, and ordering patterns are easily accessible through technology at a mere 22% of hospitals. However, many hospitals are indicating a desire to implement technology to support these areas. If you’re among the hospitals considering adopting new technologies to support supply chain management or broader Enterprise Resource Planning strategies, here’s a round-up of leading vendors in the space. You’ll note, in the article, that only 4 percent of the organizations indicating adoption of a supply chain management tool used a proprietary software package to monitor inventory. According to a RevCycle Intelligence article covering the Cardinal Health and SERMO survey results, hospitals that do utilize supply chain management automation may want to consider upgrading, “especially since survey respondents scored their facility’s legacy inventory management systems low on benchmarking abilities and visibility into inventory.” A key to successful supply chain management lies in data. Whether or not you have technology in place today to support your process or are considering new system(s) for the future, taking time to analyze the data at each stage in your hospital’s supply selection and ordering process will help you understand organizational habits. From there, you can build an informed strategy to save where possible and improve patient safety. Change is happening now. With an Enterprise Resource Planning system or an independent supply chain technology that manages aspects or even all of the process, the possibilities of understanding and reducing operational costs improve greatly, contributing to a stronger financial future for your hospital and others nationwide. Looking to preserve the integrity of your legacy supply chain management data? Want to further explore how to help your legacy data work in harmony with your new system implementation? Talk to our EMR and ERP data archiving experts today.