MEDITECH - Medical Information Technology, Inc.
MEDITECH - Medical Information Technology, Inc.
Data Collection System for Healthcare Services Provider provides Efficiencies in Inventory Control and Cost Accounting
With a client base of more than 1,700 healthcare organizations throughout the world, located primarily in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, Medical Information Technology, Inc. (MEDITECH) is a software and services company serving the health care community. Based in Westwood, Massachusetts, it offers a series of clinical, financial and administrative applications for use in the acute care, post-acute care, and ambulatory care settings. In business since 1969, the company employs over 2,000 people and had revenues of $256 million (US) in 2002.
The Challenge:
- Like most other organizations, MEDITECH’s customers must balance enhancing service and quality with improving the financial bottom line. An effective, barcode-based inventory control system is one way to help an organization in striving toward greater efficiency.
- For many healthcare organizations, supplies are managed manually by pen and paper-based systems. This is a costly, labour-intensive and error-prone method that can be substantially improved by moving to automated barcode-based inventory control.
The Solution:
- MEDITECH now offers its customers AMTSystems’ Materials Management (MatMan) software for inventory control in central stores and nurses’ station carts. Data is collected on Psion Teklogix lightweight integrated barcode-scanning computers that feature a 16-bit processor (CPU), 2 million bytes of internal memory (RAM), high-quality gray-scale display and 57-key keyboard.
- Data is collected on the Psion Teklogix devices and uploaded via a terminal or PC. MEDITECH currently has more than 600 handheld computers installed at its clients’ places of business.
The Benefits:
- The combination of the Psion Teklogix handheld computers with AMTSystems’ MatMan software significantly improves inventory control in central stores and nurses’ station carts for MEDITECH’s customers. Bar-coded products are a major enabling factor to automate input and collection of transaction data.
- Eliminating handwritten documents and subsequent manual keystroke entries can result in significant productivity gains and a near 100 per cent accuracy level.
- An automated inventory control system provides efficiencies in inventory control and cost accounting. Replenishment and inventory counts of distribution levels can be easily, promptly and accurately input by barcodes available on products and shelf locations.
- Healthcare providers experience a broad range of benefits using barcode technology:
- the quality of patient care improves
- there is increased accuracy in gathering data
- staff productivity is enhanced
- employee morale improves and health issues (i.e. carpal tunnel syndrome) are eliminated by automating tedious manual repetitive tasks such as keyboarding.
- The purchasing and supply utilization and price information is tracked efficiently to reduce cost, and risk management is greatly enhanced through the ability to share more data between integrated systems.
