The Healthcare Hub

Hospital inventory counts may reveal compliance and safety problems.

The inventory count team performs nearly 800 inventory counts at healthcare facilities every year. While conducting an accurate count is the primary objective, this work often unearths critical pieces of information for hospitals. In two cases, that information related to safety and compliance problems associated with controlled substances.

Two decades ago, a few healthcare supply chain partners decided to automate basic transactions so that they could improve efficiency and accuracy and reduce costs – and the GHX Exchange was born. Today over 10 thousand supplier divisions and 19 thousand provider facilities use GHX standards to automate the four core supply chain documents: The purchase order (850), purchase order acknowledgment (855), advance ship notice (856) and invoice (810). These “basic” supply chain transactions encompass the processes around placing an order, delivering the products and billing for those products.