How Hospital Linen Management Software Can Reduce Costs In Healthcare Facilities

Hospitals operate at a large scale and are very busy with many patients and healthcare workers entering and leaving the facility daily. This means that linen managers should always be on top of linen inventory management, as replacing used linen with freshly laundered linen items is necessary to enhance the patient experience whilst complying with standard hygiene practices of the local health department.

With many tasks to juggle and cost-saving measures being a top priority for hospital owners, linen managers may find it overwhelming to ensure a smooth linen management process while sticking to the allocated budget for this operational requirement, which could lead to increased production costs, decreased profit margins, and the lack of flexibility in their schedules to complete all assigned duties.

This is why hospital owners should turn to hospital linen management software to lift the burden off their linen managers. This advanced platform has been designed to automate various workflow processes to ensure a more efficient and streamlined linen management process and also optimise cost-saving measures.

That said, let’s explore how hospital linen management software reduces costs in healthcare facilities.

Eliminates manual tasks and reduces number of lost linen items

Linen managers have limited time to focus on linen handling. Without a linen management software, they may find themselves counting and sorting linen inventory manually. This can be a tedious, time-consuming, and labour-intensive task.

Linen management software, when integrated with RFID capabilities, can transmit data from RFID tags attached to individual linen items, and reflect the combined amount of linen inventory by different categories on a reader. This helps hospitals save a huge chunk of their labour costs and allows linen managers to focus on other healthcare-oriented tasks which bring more value to the hospital.

Aside from automated linen counting, the software has been built with real-time location tracking capabilities, reducing the probability of linen items going missing due to theft or misplacement. This is another step towards saving significant replacement costs for the hospital.

Identifies equipment performance issues

Laundry equipment maintenance is important to hospitals to ensure a smooth linen management process. Unforeseen laundry machine breakdowns can stall workforce productivity, and cause hospitals to seek a more costly alternative to linen handling while waiting for their equipment to be fixed.

Laundry equipment breakdowns result in healthcare facilities forking out higher expenditure, so by utilising the hospital linen management software, linen managers can stay informed about the status of the machines and obtain valuable information about particular linen orders that need to be delivered to healthcare facilities.

Based on its machine learning capabilities and by analysing past performance issues and fixes, the software can furnish useful information such as when the next due date is for laundry maintenance as well. This process, known as preventative maintenance, can help hospitals with cost-saving initiatives.

Prevents overstocking or stock shortages

Since linen managers are tasked with ensuring that an adequate stock of linen is available for hospital use, the worst-case scenario for a hospital linen manager is when they have either overstocked or run out of linen stocks, whether it’s for hospital beds or supplies for healthcare workers.

With the help of a linen management software, linen managers can obtain information relevant to individual linen items. Users can gain information such as how often a linen item has been laundered as well as when it’s approaching the end of its shelf life. This information extracted from the software can help in decision-making processes.

Decisions such as when high-quality linen items need to be stocked for hospital use can be made. This also facilitates cost-saving measures as hospital owners do not have to seek costly alternatives in the event that the hospital experiences a linen shortage.

Invest in hospital linen management software to reduce operational and labour costs

Linen management is an important operational requirement that shouldn’t be taken lightly in a healthcare setting. This is why hospital owners should turn to hospital linen management software to improve various operational processes within the hospital, while also being able to reduce significant operational and labour costs associated with running a hospital or healthcare facility.