How Inventory Management Software Helps with Vaccination

• How does vaccine inventory management software work?
• Who uses the vaccine management system?
• Benefits of vaccine inventory management system

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need for software solutions in the medical field. The vaccination is at its peak, and since it’s going on almost simultaneously in every country, the number of shots is huge and hard to manage. Vaccine inventory management software is used to keep the track of mass vaccination.

Vaccine management is a part of medical practice, but, like many other things in the medical field, it is usually done manually, on paper. Paperwork is a huge part of the workflow in medical facilities, however, it is an outdated approach, as it is very unreliable and prone to mistakes. They also take hours of work time every month.

This is why medical facilities are starting to implement technological solutions, such as vaccine inventory management software. To efficiently manage vaccines, a vaccine management system has to have supply chain and inventory management, cold storage management, and patient management. All these parts create an all-in-one solution that helps to eliminate the weak spots and track vaccines all the way to the patient.

How does vaccine inventory management software work?

A medical inventory management system usually comes in the form of an app or computer software, or it can also be a web-based solution.

Like every other inventory management software, it uses barcodes. From the start of the vaccine’s transportation to the patient, the barcodes are scanned on every step. This makes it easy to trace the vaccine back to the manufacturer — or to the end recipient.

The vaccines can be also bought, stored, labeled, maintained, and billed through the vaccine inventory management software.

Who uses the vaccine management system?

Of course, the main users of this system are healthcare providers. But it also benefits the patients.

For the medical workers, vaccine inventory management software helps to automate processes like:

• Mass vaccination program;
• Scheduling and managing vaccination appointments;
• Vaccine tracking and reporting;
• Inventory management;
• Temperature management.

Using the system, the patients can:

• Register on the vaccination;
• Schedule the appointments;
• Pre-answer vaccination questionnaires;
• Receive appointment notifications;
• Create vaccine certificate;
• Report side effects.

For health organizations, the vaccine inventory management system helps to monitor the vaccine management process, thus effectively finding and eliminating or preventing related problems. Also learn about logistics conferences safe to attend.

Benefits of vaccine inventory management system

It reduces the manual work

As we stated earlier, vaccine management is usually manual or even paper-based. The vaccine inventory management system is fully automated. This helps the medical field workers to easily update the vaccination information, and it becomes automatically visible to every other worker of the facility, who has access to the system. And the barcode scanners help in counting and tracking the vaccines.

It helps with cold chain management

Lots of vaccines require special temperature conditions for storage, otherwise they could lose their properties. Usually, it’s between 2-8 degrees Celsius, however, some COVID-19 vaccines require lower temperatures. Vaccine inventory management software can be integrated with a temperature monitoring system, which allows to remotely monitor the temperature in the freezers. If it changes somehow, the system will alert the medical workers, so they could bring the temperature to the required norm and avoid spoilage.

It makes inventory management easier

The system contains every detail of incoming and outgoing vaccines, which helps to monitor stock levels. It eliminates the manual work, thus providing an efficient and easy way to track vaccine shipments, store and maintain accurate inventory information, see the number of doses per vaccine left in the freezer. With the vaccine inventory management software, medical workers can even track the vaccine up to the patient who got it, using serial numbers. The software is also useful for demand forecasting to avoid a shortage in supplies.

It stores patient records

The vaccine inventory management system stores previous data about patient’s vaccinations, demographics, check-ups and other information. The data is updated in real-time to provide an accurate view of the vaccination process.

It manages the scheduling of appointments

Manually scheduling the appointments is hard. It is easy to make mistakes in the schedule and make overlapping appointments, which is inconvenient for everyone involved. However, the vaccine inventory management software automatically creates and maintains them, leaving for the patients only vacant time spots to choose from. It also alerts the medical workers if a patient is behind its schedule.

As you can see, the medical field, like many others, can also benefit from IT solutions. For now, manual work still predominates, but we hope in the future it will change, as more and more medical centers turn to vaccine inventory management software.

Inventory management is a part of logistics, and Coreteka has vast experience in this field. Learn about our projects to see the expertise we can bring to your projects.

Also you can read about food traceability software trends on our website

If you are interested in the vaccine — or any other — inventory management, contact us!