One of the defining features of the coronavirus pandemic has been the struggle countries have faced in securing the right quality and quantity of personal protective equipment (PPE) to both frontline health workers and their wider citizenry.
A new project between Healthcare analytics firm AdviseInc and Qlik has seen the development of a PPE tracking app to help healthcare organizations better manage their stocks.
The app, known as StockWatch, was developed after the team discovered that many NHS Trusts were managing their stock levels with a simple Excel spreadsheet, which presented considerable challenges for the tracking of logistics. This would result in stock shortages, and safety challenges for staff.
The app aims to provide real-time data visualizations and predictive forecasting to help procurement teams to source and supply PPE to public institutions. It’s currently being used by 70 NHS trusts, as well as ambulance services, GP practices, and mental health services.
Neil Hind, GM NHS Procurement Programme Director for Greater Manchester commented: “The StockWatch application has enabled us to better understand and track PPE across all of our public services in Greater Manchester. In a matter of days, we’ve gone from spreadsheets and inconsistent data to a clean, single source of the truth that is updated in near real-time. We have 26 different public services using this application – across healthcare, local authorities, and transport providers. StockWatch informs a core part of our daily meetings, helping us to monitor stock levels of PPE across the region, better forecast demand, and then distribute resources accordingly. Ultimately, it has allowed us to ensure we have the right equipment to allow our essential workers to continue caring for patients.”
In the event of a second wave, better management of supplies is likely to be crucial to ensure the hardships experienced due to a paucity of them are not repeated. Hopefully both the supply chains will have become more robust in that time, and via apps such as this, the procurement and logistics elements of the buy side of the equation will also be more suitably equipped.
“The rollout of this tool started as an urgent response to demand from existing healthcare customers to have a more agile approach to managing their PPE resources, and its use has exploded across NHS Trusts, and the wider health and social care sector,” AdviseInc say. “We’re thankful that Qlik has offered to provide their technology free of charge as part of this solution so we’re able to offer the NHS this application at no-cost, particularly given the significant impact it is already having on many trusts and other healthcare providers’ ability to better utilise critical PPE resources.”
