The world is changing and improving due to technological advancements - even in some unexpected ways. Here are four tools that increase insight, efficiency and safety in your supply chain. All of which benefits patients.
A solid base
It all starts with a solid base. By automating all core processes, including finance, manufacturing, warehousing and quality control, you optimize your entire business. It enables you to become more efficiently and more transparent. An ERP system helps you to mitigate risk while maximizing productivity.
Quality is key
While ERP is valuable for automating processes, patient safety mostly improves with increased quality of the pharmaceutical product. Generally, improvements in patient safety are associated with innovations in lab systems or the development of new production methods. Optimizing your business software, however, can have a surprisingly great impact on the quality of your products and, with that, on patient safety.
An integrated quality management system (QMS), consisting of several tools, ensures the highest quality of the produced product. It does so by tackling three problem areas: issue management (Corrective Action/Preventive Action or CAPA), Governance, Risk & Compliance and supply chain traceability.
With an integrated issue management tool, you can act upon and investigate any internal and external issues more effectively because you can eliminate paper flows and create a single point of truth. This eventually leads to improved safety and quality and prevents additional cost due to regulatory non-compliance.
The importance of compliance
Patient safety is not just an essential element of your business plan. It is also increasingly regulated by national and international law. Compliancy is therefore no longer something to strive for; it is a non-negotiable requirement to stay in business. From experience I see that regulatory bodies are becoming more and more keen on critical systems and how you manage these.
You can monitor risks and check for incorrect or unauthorized use of your systems with a governance risk & compliance tool. The advantage is that you can quickly act upon possible wrong doings, or even prevent them. This results in a positive outcome on the integrity of your system and users.
Finally, a traceability tool offers insight into your entire supply chain. This allows you to see of which batch of materials your product is made up and which route each of these materials have taken. This type of tool guarantees a fully transparent supply chain, data integrity and, with that, patient safety. This way, you can be compliant with strict rules and regulations.
Technological developments improve patient safety in many ways. Next to 'classic' supply chain optimizations, an integrated QMS system can significantly increase data integrity, product quality and patient safety.
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