Considerable time, effort and expense go in to the day to day management of consignment stock within a department. This applies equally to the hospital staff as well as those associated with the processes on the supplier side of the business, and is generally managed through a manual and intermittent process. hTrak provides its clients with the ability to identify all consignment stock in the Department at the web server level. An individual staff member does not need to know if a device is on consignment at the point of scanning and consumption.

Once the hand held data is synchronised to the web server (usually at the end of the list), the client business rules applying to the business process for the management of consignment stock devices are applied. hTrak can mandate collection of the lot number (through scanning), irrespective of whether or not it is a prosthetic, by allowing staff to set a flag for devices as required. This facilitates the rapid reconciliation of all consignment stock activity and provides clients with a complete audit trail of activity (including Lot Number), by supplier for a specified date range.

It is important that consignment stock activity is monitored at the point of the procedure. At a department level, consignment stock devices are flagged allowing a completely separate business process to be applied once these devices are scanned and activity tracked. This allows reporting to be generated which can incorporate a report to the supplier, alerting them to consignment stock consumption and facilitating the replenishment process. The actual nature of this relationship and the mechanics of the process can be implemented according to an individual client's business requirements.

Recent updates to the hTrak web server environment now allow this communication of consumption information to a supplier to take place in virtually real time. Within a minute or so of scanning and uploading, the appropriate information is assembled and communicated to the supplier. This is particularly useful in the case of prostheses which may require replenishment during a list, such as orthopaedic implants.

It should be stressed that any communication to a supplier only occurs where it has been authorised by the client. It is a function of the business relationship between the provider and the client. hTrak acts as the facilitator.