Becker's ASC Review

33 Ophthalmology Roundtable Sponsored by D o you spend hours every week managing the intraocular lens (IOL) inventory at your eye cen- ter? Is it a headache to track all your implants and account for every item in inventory? Is the paperwork for these im- plants stacking up? Efficiency is extremely important to a surgery center's bottom line, and supply chain management can easily take a big chunk out of the manager's day. To as- sist, a new technology is available for IOL management that can provide a whole set of unique solutions. McKesson's Implant Manager automates your facility's IOL processes to improve workflow and provides robust tools so you can better manage your IOL inven- tory. With a combination of barcode scanning technology and an easy-to- use interface, facilities can eliminate the manual implant inventory process and reduce the risk of errors when receiv- ing IOL inventory. The software records and alerts lens expiration dates, to help prevent losses due to expired inventory. Also, Implant Manager has the capability to quickly and easily track the necessary information of the implanted lens to the patient. It can generate detailed reports to search and verify accurate inventory counts, which can be uploaded into an electronic health record (EHR) system. As a facility uses their IOLs, Implant Man- ager can auto-generate bill and replace orders, return goods authorizations and FDA patient registration cards. All of this is aimed to give a facility total control of their IOL inventory and save money through gained efficiencies and en- hanced productivity. Anna Conley is the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) purchasing agent at Cincin- nati Eye Institute. Cincinnati Eye Institute performs 1,000 cases per month and carries around 4,500 to 5,000 lenses on consignment. The center uses four IOL vendors — Alcon, Abbott Medical Optic, Bausch & Lomb and Staar Surgical. The center does not have the Staar Surgical IOLs on consignment. There are 25 sur- geons who currently perform cases at the center. Olivia Uptergrove is the Clinical Director of the Eye Surgery Center of North Dal- las, which performs more than 400 cases per month. The ASC has seven managing surgeons currently doing surgery. Their inventory includes more than 3,800 IOLs from various vendors including AMO, Alcon, B&L and Staar Surgical. All of the IOLs are on consignment. Ms. Conley and Ms. Uptergrove both in- corporated the Implant Manager tech- nology from McKesson to improve effi- ciency and supply management at their eye centers. Question: How did your workflow go prior to implementing Implant Man- ager? Anna Conley: Prior to Implant Manager everything was documented by hand. When lenses arrived they went right onto our shelves. I had no way of tracking which lenses were at our facility. I could only track those that were implanted. When a lens was used I received an "im- plant card" that had the doctor's name and patient information. I was able to scan each implant lens into a spreadsheet, assign a purchase order number and fax it to the correct vendor for a "bill and replace." I then had to scan each lens into a file on our "S" drive so finance could pay the invoice. Once I was finished with the "bill and replace", I sent the cards to our front desk. They manu- ally imported the lens, doctor and patient information into our database. Once that was completed, the cards were mailed to the vendor. Quarterly I would have to manually check the expiration dates of each lens and return if expired. Olivia Uptergrove: Prior to Implant Man- ager we used a paper system to manage the implants. I had multiple large bind- ers each one with sections for different implants and each size. This was very tedious. Every time an IOL was delivered I manually wrote in the serial number. Then when one was used we would save an extra implant sticker and patient label to put over that serial number. For expired lens we would just do a quar- terly IOL check to look for expiring lens- es. I mostly handled the IOL logs myself and it took multiple hours a week. Luckily back then we weren't full speed because I can't imagine how much time it would take now with our increased volume. How to Make Your Eye Center Supply Management More Efficient Anna Conley Olivia Uptergrove

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