Nurses Say Supply Chain Problems Impact Safety, Hospital Margins

Nurses face significant supply chain management problems that affect efficiency, patient safety, and hospital margins, according to the annual marketing report from Syft.

These findings are based on a February 2021 survey of 50 hospital frontline nurses and 50 nurse leaders.  According to the results, 85 percent of nurses said they encounter challenges documenting supplies, and 80 percent want more supply automation tools.

"Hospitals are taking steps to improve their supply chains after seeing vulnerabilities exposed by COVID-19, but these findings show that they won't be successful until they start factoring in the nurse experience," Syft CEO Todd Plesko said in a press release.

"Nurses are experiencing pervasive and troubling challenges related to efficiency, patient safety, waste, and mental health due to supply chains not recognizing their needs. Creating a more nurse-centric supply chain is critical to every hospital's success,” he continued.

According to the survey, 65 percent of nurses reported that their hospital’s supply documentation system is too time consuming.

Arduous documentation processes impact patient safety, according to the survey results. Almost 90 percent of nurses (86 percent) said they sometimes must leave procedures to hunt for supplies, and 61 percent noted that leaving the procedure increases patient safety risks.

The time-consuming documentation process also affects patient safety by leading one in four nurses to be negligent in checking product expiration or recall information. Almost half of these nurses (48 percent) attributed this to lack of time.

Supply chain problems also impact nurse stress levels and burnout. Specifically, 86 percent of nurses surveyed said their supply chain documentation system brings them stress. What’s more, one in three nurses reported that hospital leadership is not putting in significant effort to reduce OR nurse stress, and 18 percent said they have even considered leaving their current position due to supply chain issues.

The nurses surveyed said that supply chain problems also result in excess waste and lower hospital margins, with more than three in four nurses (76 percent) reporting that supply shortages are common. Additionally, almost one in four nurses (23 percent) said that the greatest impact of supply shortages is reduced revenue.

According to the survey, 12 percent of nurses said their OR wastes supplies in more than 25 percent of cases. This waste could be mitigated through waste-reduction tools such as barcode scanning. While one-third of nurses lack access to barcode scanning, nurses who had access to these barcode scanning tools were more likely to say they were very satisfied with their healthcare supply chain system.

Additionally, almost all nurses surveyed (95 percent) noted that inaccurate physician preference cards decrease their efficiency.

“Since nurses are deeply affected by supply chain processes, and are keenly aware of how those processes impact patient care, efficiency, supply use, and importantly, their own stress levels, incorporating their insight and prioritizing their needs is foundational to any supply chain improvement initiative,” the report authors wrote.

“Learning from their experiences and better understanding their needs is also critical to a hospital’s financial health, as the top two expenses for most hospitals are labor (of which nearly one-third is nurses), and supplies,” the authors continued. “Hospital leaders cannot afford to overlook either element. Nor can they fail to consider how nurses’ workflows and supply chain management processes complement and contradict each other, when planning for a healthier hospital.”

The survey results point to the need for supply chain technology improvements that would help streamline clinical processes. Specifically, nurses called for technology that would automatically send alerts for supply shortages, expiration dates, and recalls. Nurses also reported that technology that automatically updates preference cards would aid their workflow.