Navision Partners India - viaMD Inc. USA, Automating supply chains, Web-native applications, e-Supply Chain Management

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Case Study - viaMD

viaMD streamlines the supply chain of medical implants

Founded in 2000, viaMD Inc. (USA) is dedicated to automating supply chains through the design of industry specific Web-native applications that connect business partners such as Hospitals and Medical Device Supplier/Distributors. viaMD's collaborative commerce application service connects disparate supply chain constituents in disparate process steps into a seamless workflow application. The company goal is to free up supply chain related capital and human resources and thereby enhance existing one to one relationships among its users.

viaMD wanted to build a web-based system to improve the efficiencies in the supply chain of medical implants. A typical medical implants supply chain is characterized by the following:

High demand uncertainty: A surgeon is often not sure of which medical implants might be used during the operation until the surgery event starts. Due to this fact an order might be placed for an implant but there exists a probability that it might not be used creating high inventory levels.

Very high stock-out cost: Suppliers of medical implants want the surgeon to have all the potential parts for a surgery case available. So again, hospitals carry high inventory levels of supplier consigned implants. As a result inventory turns for these expensive products are 1-3 times a year with a commensurate high annual carrying cost

Long cash realization cycle: Low demand visibility, surgeon services requirement and consigned inventory status results in higher shipping costs, higher carrying costs and delayed cash realization.

To eliminate these inefficiencies in the supply chain, viaMD decided to build a Collaborative Commerce System for Medical Implants to fulfill the following objectives:

Improvement in demand forecasting capability

Demand based inventory replenishment system

Reduction in inventory variation

Inventory visibility across the supply chain

Improvement in reliability of supply chain through order prioritization

Reduction in the cash flow cycle time

A customizable product that could be sold to third parties

Highly scalable and robust, able to handle very large data volumes

viaMD wanted to build a web-based system to improve the efficiencies in the supply chain of medical implants. In a typical supply chain of Medical Implants, there are a number of players/ entities involved, each having its own 'pains' areas. Automation of supply chain therefore requires the following needs to be addressed:


Surgeons:

Reduce surgery delays due to pre-certification authorization, clinical notification or implant non-availability. Up to 25% of surgeries are postponed or cancelled for these reasons

Access to an easy-to-use surgery scheduling and patient admitting service to one or more hospitals. Scheduling currently requires multiple phone calls and often multiple paper admit forms

Improved physician preference card management so surgeons receive the right implants, equipment, and supplies

Access real-time, personalized usage and cost information to improve practice efficiencies

Hospitals:
	Delight referring surgeons
	Reduce uncompensated surgeries or surgery delays due to admitting process problems
	Reduce cost of technology ownership with more service flexibility
	Integrate scheduling, admitting, and materials management into one integrated work flow process
	Comply with HIPAA regulations
	Effectively manage implant and equipment tray inventory to reduce slippage charges, shipping costs, and inventory carrying costs
	Seamlessly generate orders based on varying inventory stocking types and when material is needed, not earlier.
	Reduce equipment tray reprocessing and part replacement costs

Medical Device and Equipment Suppliers:
	Increase consigned inventory turns, currently 1-3x turns
	Reduce receivables days, currently 45-90 days on an average
	Increase surgery sales representative productivity. Field reps spend up to 50% on non-selling, paper or telephone related activities.
	Track serial codes in patients for FDA reporting purposes
	Access real-time hospital inventory at serial number level
To eliminate these inefficiencies in the supply chain, viaMD decided to build a Collaborative Commerce System for Medical Implants to fulfill the following objectives:
	Reduction in inventory held in hospitals
	Improvement in demand forecasting capability
	Demand based inventory replenishment system
	Reduction in inventory variation
	Inventory visibility across the supply chain
	Improvement in reliability of supply chain through order prioritization
	Reduction in the cash flow cycle time

:: Solution Summary

All-e's team comprising of Functional and Technical Consultants developed and implemented an e-Supply Chain Management application that complies with the 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The platform is developed in a 100% Java-based environment and represents open, n-tier software architecture consistent with the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) software standard. Users have 100% browser-based service, secure firewall protection, 128 key SSL encryption, entity and role-based user access, and extensive transaction and security logs that streamlined the highly inefficient medical implant supply chain with a pure web-native. The application web-enabled the existing supply chain and, in doing so, it automated certain process steps and made others more efficient with accurate, measurable outputs. The aim was to free up capital and human resources for all constituents that could be reinvested in their existing one-to-one business relationships.

Application has the following modules:
	Surgery Management
	Post Surgery
	Order Management
	Shipment Management
	Part Receipt & Return Material Authorizations

:: Key Benefits

	Faster inventory turns
	Shorter invoice and payment cycles
	Higher human productivity
	No delayed cases due to pre-operative administration
	Lower shipping costs and error rates
	Greater revenue visibility


	Solution Snapshots


All-e's team comprising of Functional and Technical Consultants developed and implemented an e-Supply Chain Management application that complies with the 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The platform is developed in a 100% Java-based environment and represents open, n-tier software architecture consistent with the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) software standard. Users have 100% browser-based service, secure firewall protection, 128 key SSL encryption, entity and role-based user access, and extensive transaction and security logs that streamlined the highly inefficient medical implant supply chain with a pure web-native system. The application web-enabled the existing supply chain and, in doing so, it automated certain process steps and made others more efficient with accurate, measurable outputs.
The key aspects of the solution are as follows:

	It is a multi-threaded scheduling, admitting, and materials planning functionality, including surgery-specific implant, equipment and supply product configuration. Surgeon's offices generate surgery requests with customized material orders and the relevant hospital departments schedule and confirm surgery cases.

	An Inventory and order fulfillment functionality enabling surgery pick lists, post surgery materials reconciliation, specialized inventory and order management, receiving, and reverse logistics for the hospital.

	It strives to fulfill the unique needs of each viaMD health care professional with role-based functionality for over ten unique role types such as surgeons, material pickers, and sales representatives. The solution starts at initiating supply chain event, when a surgeon schedules the surgery and creates the patient admitting orders. The hospital schedules the surgery and confirms the admission. The day of surgery, or up to a week in advance, the OR materials team picks the material list and reconciles the used items following surgery. The system generates orders daily based on inventory stocking type. Suppliers confirm and make shipments. The hospital receives shipments, and matches against the order. Each role collaborates with others so users can take action collaboratively and save time with a whole product solution

	It is a 100% browser based application that consists of integrated web forms which pull and push data from our central data repository into various application modules. Data access is based on entity and user role entitlements. It has a very diverse user base with different work flow requirements, from surgeons who pre-operatively requisition the surgery and related materials; to schedulers who schedule surgeries and admit patients; to hospital materials personnel who plan inventory, pick the pick lists, approve orders, and receive shipments; to supplier sales representatives who support both the surgeon and hospital; and finally to suppliers who fulfill orders. Each user has a unique role with relevant data access. We designed the application with the user needs as our top priority.

	Every viaMD web form is encrypted with 128 key encryption technology. The viaMD web site has official Secure Site certification from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), www.verisign.com. All servers are protected by Cisco firewalls, daily monitoring and data back ups, and careful infrastructure design. Customers have options as to the mechanisms used for authentication. Independent parties may perform security audits on a regular basis. Users have entity and role-based access privileges.

Maryellen Keenan, Materials Manager, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York

"viaMD's service ties together key surgery steps for the surgeon and hospital. Admitting, scheduling, and pre-op materials needs drive hospital order and inventory management. Now, everyone gets the right surgery and order information as soon as possible."

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