Objective:
To improve customer satisfaction at point-of-use storage locations across the healthcare organization
Calculation:
| Number of lines replenished at point-of-use locations | ||
| x 100% | ||
| Total number of lines ordered at point-of-use locations |
Target:
≥ 98% fill rate
Background Details
Rationale
The supply chain department in healthcare organizations plays a key role in the delivery of patient care. At the cart or point-of-use location, the supply chain department must achieve high levels of dependability and accuracy by closely monitoring its fill rate performance and continuously improving its processes and technologies. By monitoring fill rates, service delivery issues can be identified quickly and root-cause analyses can be conducted to resolve the issue.
Benefits
Patient Care
High fill rates ensure supply chain customers (i.e., physicians, nurses and non-clinical departments) have access to the right product at the right time. This contributes directly to their performance and ultimately affects the quality of patient care that the healthcare organization provides.
Process Efficiency
Through better planning of internal inventories, optimization of cart quotas and standardization of products, process efficiencies will be generated by reducing the number of supply transactions, especially the number of rush orders.
Customer Service
Monitoring and improving fill rates leads to enhanced customer service delivery through better demand planning and increased communication with customers on changing requirements and understanding customers’ supply needs.
Underlying Leading Practices
Demand Management
Comprehensive understanding of an organization’s requirements for stock and non-stock items helps reduce stock-outs and improve service levels.
Collaborative Planning
Immediate communication across the supply chain from customer to supplier about changes to requirements supports better understanding, faster response times and improved customer satisfaction.
Identification of Product Standardization Opportunities
Reducing the variety of products encourages larger volume purchases, which results in simplified inventory and data management and reduced risk of stock-outs.
Bar Coding/Scanning Technology
Bar code scanning and point-of-use inventory management systems improve customer service through closer monitoring of inventory levels and quota management.
Target Considerations
Establishment
A number of hospitals and third-party providers have already begun measuring fill rates. The members of Working Group that measure fill rates report, on average, just over a 98 per cent fill rate. Accordingly, the group has set a minimum fill rate of 98 per cent as an initial target for this metric, with 98.5 per cent as a future target.
Reporting Frequency
This metric should be regularly monitored and if low fill rates are identified, root-cause analysis should be conducted immediately and fill rates should be closely monitored until the problem is resolved.
Related Metrics and Standards
| Related Metrics: | Related Standards: |
|---|---|
| 1.2 Purchasing Response Time 2.1 Average Cost to Issue a Purchase Order 3.2 Percentage of Rush Purchase Orders 4.1 Stock-Outs at the Cart Level 5.2 Supplier Performance |
2.2 Inventory Policy 4.1 Customer Survey Tools and Processes 5.1 Supplier Performance Management Process |
Implementation
Calculation Parameters
Calculation:
| Number of lines replenished at point-of-use locations | ||
| x 100% | ||
| Total number of lines ordered at point-of-use locations |
| Variable | Include | Exclude |
|---|---|---|
| Number of lines replenished at point-of-use locations | Include the number of lines filled completely | Do not include:
|
| Total number of lines ordered at point-of-use locations | Include the number of individual point-of-use or PAR cart orders initiated via a quota management system for:
|
Do not include either the following types of orders:
|
Data Accessibility Rating
CHALLENGING – Data are available but require analysis and custom reporting
Possible Data Sources
Electronic
Inventory and/or Cart Management Modules:
Many information systems track both Number of lines replenished at point-of-use locations and Total number of lines ordered at point-of-use locations through their cart management or inventory modules and can retrieve the data in month-end standard reports. If the data are not available in a standard report or the calculation method provided is different from the method described in this document, the data can typically be retrieved by programming a custom report.
Manual
In many organizations, this metric would be difficult to track manually due to the large number of pointof- use orders and purchase order lines per purchase order. If electronic reporting is unavailable, the organization could consider using a logging method throughout the month or selecting a representative time period (one day, one week, etc.) to collect a subset of data. Organizations should select the option that balances the cost of collecting the data and the associated accuracy with the benefit of reporting the metric.
Implementation Challenges
Challenges:
- If data are unavailable from the current information system and resources are not available for complete manual measurement, the organization should consider periodical manual measurement of fill-rate performance in critical departments.
- Hospitals with offsite warehouses tend to experience longer order replenishment cycles than those with onsite facilities. For organizations with offsite warehouses, monitoring of stock-out occurrences might provide a better measure of the supply chain department’s performance than fill rates, which can be affected by the warehouse’s performance in responding to orders.
- Fill rates are used to evaluate customer service and are important to maintaining good customer relationships. It is therefore important to involve customers in developing the reporting method to ensure they perceive it to be accurate, credible and representative.
