The Supply Side of BWH
With BWH inpatient admissions totaling about 40,000 per year and ambulatory visits at 720,000, it is a challenging task to ensure that supplies are at hand — every bedsheet, bandage, tongue depressor and “widget.”
That job is orchestrated by Materials Management, directed by Mary Gomperts, who works with Nursing and other clinical services to determine what supplies are needed, then oversees their distribution. “We have 34 staff members in Supply Support who daily go to each of the 50 units throughout the hospital with hand-held computer terminals to assess current stock and take orders,” said Gomperts. “They do the assessment on the first shift, and products are delivered on the second.” Supply Support is just one of the department’s functions. Other responsibilities include laundry and linens, mailroom and the receiving and distribution center.
Sometimes a unit may run out of an item, perhaps because the patient census is up or the supply assessor missed something during the morning rounds. For immediate needs, nurses can call the Customer Service phone number (ext. 4929) posted at each nursing station, and Supply Support will bring the item to the unit. Overstocks are discouraged. “With hospital space at such a premium, units have room to store only about a day’s worth of supplies,” said Gomperts. “It’s important for nurse managers and their staff to participate as much as possible.”
About 6,000 items classified as type “A” (e.g., bandages, dressings, IV solution) are in inventory, stored at an off-site distribution center. But to ensure a quick response for items critical to patient care, BWH has an on-site inventory of about 700 items. For example, most IV solutions are stored on-site; shampoo is not.
Beyond BWH’s local system, there is a Partners-wide system that oversees supplies for all member hospitals. These entities include Purchasing (buys products), Contracting (seeks cost-savings from multi-institutional purchasing power), Clinical Resource Management (identifies new products to put into trial, oversees product conversions), Shuttle Transport (buses staff between Partners hospitals), Information Systems (for inventory and purchasing), and Affiliates Markets (incorporates outlying Partners physician practices into purchasing power).
Nursing intersects with these areas in various committees. On both the Partners and BWH level, the Patient Safety Committee and the Latex Committee is headed by Catherine Breen, RN, program manager, Nursing Quality Management. Nursing also is represented on the Needle Safe Committee, which is continually studying and recommending products to protect clinicians from accidental exposure to infectious agents.
On the BWH level, Gomperts often attends the Nurse Council Meeting and the monthly Nurse Managers Meeting. She is working with unit managers to update their “critical item list” and a “substitute item” list, which automatically allows a similar product to be substituted for a back-ordered item.
Recently joining her staff are two assistant managers, Therese Breen and Andrew Madden, who will help manage a pilot program that is beginning on Tower 12 and progressing to other units in the future. The program will assess supply distribution and system improvements (the daily assessors are not trained to address these matters).
Nurses who would like to make recommendations about supplies are encouraged to contact their nurse managers, the Partners offices and committees described above or Gomperts at 732-5268 and mgomperts@partners.org.