7 Reasons You Need Digital Inventory Management in Your Dental Practice

Electronic stock control is increasingly essential to businesses simply because of automation. Inventory management for dentists eliminates human error throughout the stock process, and provides transparency over stock levels to aid better, quicker decision making across the whole business.

Inadequate or inefficient stock control causes problems for dental practices which can cost a practice a great deal in:

• unnecessary wastage
• holding expired products
• delivery delays
• expensive substitutions, and
• time consuming stock control.

Conventionally, stock control has been done manually by staff. But as most practices know, this is a frustrating, time consuming and inefficient task.

Why KMsoft?

We understand dental practices.

Although each dental practice is different, a lot of the challenges they face are similar. Managing inventory is a critical part of running a practice, and how stock is controlled can be the difference between a successful practice, and one that fails.

That’s why having a system for electronic stock control can revolutionise a practice and its profitability.

At KMsoft, we developed StockAssist specifically to save regulated businesses like busy dental practices a lot of time and money, and reduce the administrative burden on staff.

StockAssist is an all in one solution which can integrate seamlessly with your existing practice management systems to significantly reduce the administrative burden that stock management can present.

StockAssist uses a barcode system and scanner to monitor expiry dates, manage stock levels, and provide accurate cost and stock reporting, often by using the barcode labelling already applied by manufacturers.

This allows you to save time on menial administrative tasks and instead focus on growth, increasing profitability and client satisfaction.

Why switch to electronic stock control?

1. Simplify Stock Management

The primary advantage of using StockAssist is for inventory management. StockAssist users can instantly access stock reports and run analytics on stock levels to assist with reordering, and to prevent overstocking and wastage.

This is particularly useful for multiple practice groups as this can all be managed centrally via the convenient cloud-based StockAssist model.

2. Cost Saving

According to data in the US, the average dental practice saves over $8,000/year by reducing the number of wasted supplies, decreasing staff hours spent counting and organising inventory, and minimising last-minute orders.

We know that in the UK, the challenges are the same and they can present a significant cost to a dental practice. StockAssist is an investment in your business to save you time and money.

Pete Thomson, Director at KMsoft, said:

“Our StockAssist product has been developed specifically to improve stock control for dental and healthcare businesses. It aims to improve profitability, provide accurate cost, stock and expiry date reporting and thus helps to reduce redundant stock and enhance patient safety. We look forward to showcasing the software to the UK dentistry market to demonstrate a future-proof way forwards for inventory management.”

3. Reduce the Administrative Burden

We know that practices are busy, fast paced businesses which are often growing quickly. Practice managers are often stretched to their capabilities which can cause a higher turnover of staff. In turn, this can have a negative impact on staff morale – and it’s one of the reasons we developed StockAssist.

Managing business continuity through staff changes or even just across a group of practices can be a challenge, but electronic stock control makes this a straightforward task.

In one place you can seamlessly keep records, and keep track of inventory to ensure that the flow of information is smooth, reliable and consistent up and down the supply chain and across the group of practices.

For that reason, cloud-based inventory control is ideal for groups of dental practices where there are multiple locations. It also works well for small, fast paced and growing practices as it allows you to focus more on your clients and worry less about admin, which allows staff to spend more time on the jobs that they love and less time on the jobs that drain them, and also ensures fewer administrative mistakes.

4. Regulatory Compliance

StockAssist functions with GS1 and HIBCC barcodes, meaning it integrates seamlessly with legacy healthcare labelling standards as well as the latest Scan 4 Safety requirements, giving you peace of mind over regulatory compliance.

5. Confidence in Care Quality Commission & Recalls

Keeping track of inventory is particularly critical is when it comes to recalls. There have been several high profile cases in recent years where dental products such as implants, or dental equipment including sterile needles, have been recalled.

If a dental practice is not on top of its inventory management, this can be a nightmare to navigate. However, with electronic stock control, you can quickly and clearly see not just what stock you hold, but also its precise location. This makes it effortless to locate the recalled items and take the necessary corrective action swiftly.

6. Better Business Management

Having an electronic stock control system like StockAssist makes great business sense. The transparency over stock control and profitability helps contribute to better business management and decision making across the whole practice, and can help practices really focus more on sustainable growth.

7. Sustainability

More so than ever, sustainability is a key consideration in business operations. It’s not just about saving paper – it’s about efficiency. If a dental practice’s inventory management is not efficient, it has a knock on effect throughout the business, causing delays, wastage and lost stock, all of which cost time and money.

Having a digital stock control system such as StockAssist is a powerful solution to these issues.

Going paperless and implementing electronic stock control improves accuracy and efficiency which saves time, money, and reduces the environmental impact both in terms of the paperless aspect but also reducing wastage.

Embracing new sustainable technologies also positively impacts a practice’s brand, can attract new talent to the team, and elevate customer experience.

So How Does StockAssist benefit dental practices?

StockAssist is an easy to use, easy to set up cloud based software package which uses barcodes to track stock.

Upon receiving goods, StockAssist:

• Checks to confirm the time until expiry & records the batch and serial numbers
• Automatically assigns a value on delivery
• Enters number of items and scans a barcode to identify the location where the stock items are to be stored

When moving stock between practices, StockAssist scans the barcode on the stock item to identify it, checks to confirm a stock item has not passed its expiry date, and scans and updates the new location for the stock item.

When issuing stock, StockAssist can scan or create a patient ID, scan barcodes on stock items being issued, check to confirm a stock item has not passed its expiry date. It will also check to confirm that the oldest usable stock item is issued first.

StockAssist can also record the batch number and serial number of all items. This means that in the event of a recall, all items, together with their end use, can be accounted for. This is why digital inventory management in your dental practice is so vital.

For stock items which are not delivered with a barcode label, all versions of StockAssist come with a direct thermal label printer and can print the required labels.

“The nurse that does our stock is very happy with StockAssist. We definitely have a much better idea of stock levels and where the stock is being allocated to. Also, it really helps with stock ordering… Long term we will be in a much better position to apportion costs to individual surgeries and have an accurate figure for stock levels and how much stock we hold. The nurse in charge feels that already other staff members are thinking more about what stock they need in their surgeries rather than just coming into the stock room and grabbing more than required.”

– DR Robert G Watson, Dollar Dental Care

StockAssist operating system requirements: Any web browser

StockAssist Hardware requirements: PDA device & desktop barcode printer supplied

Price: Subscription based pricing packages

Support: 24/7 support (optional)

Who is it for? Practice managers of growing practices & groups of dental practices

If you’d like to request a demonstration or find out more about StockAssist and how electronic stock control in your dental practice could work, email us at info@kmsoft.co.uk.

www.kmsoft.co.uk