If you have been following along you know that we have recently launched a Dispensary Platform specifically catered to manage the increasing inventory demand currently facing Dental schools. Last April, Rutgers School of Dental Medicine was one of the first dental schools to announce their adoption of this new personalized inventory management software. As we said before, “The successful launch of WebOps Dispensary in the RSDM clinics is only the beginning.” A coming release in mid-Summer, 2022 will incorporate Central Sterile operations. Once completed, instrument movements within the sterilization suite will switch from requiring manually log-ins and make the switch to seamless automation. Users can also look forward to the addition of the Graduate dispensary feature.
You can look forward to this announcement in the next coming months, until then we think it is important to understand the system functionality of the WebOps Dispensary Platform and how it works for dental schools. The platform ties inventory transactions, asset visibility, student sales, and administrative data (cataloging, etc.) into a single system for managing and optimizing consumables, implants, instruments, and other equipment such as articulators.
How To: Central Receiving
Our clients have noted that one of the most useful amenities in our platform is the Central Receiving page. WebOps supports central receiving and issue sections through the Receiving screen. Users can bulk receive non-serialized items or batch receive serialized items to improve efficiency. Additionally, specific fields can be locked for re-use on future, similar, inbound shipments arriving from the same supplier. This screen is how new inventory is created in the system by users with the applicable permissions. It was critical to WebOps to ensure the entire platform is extremely user friendly.
Users can transfer inventory using check-outs, check-ins, and relocates. Check- outs are for temporary transfers and to track due-back timers at the catalog level, alerting inventory users when a student has overdue items that must be returned. WebOps Dispensary is already live in four of the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine student clinics, managing almost 13,000 transactions each month. RSDM Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs Michael Conte said, “It’s modernized the way we handle inventorying.” Check-ins are the opposite of this process, returning checked out items back to a storage location such as a Dispensary or Dental Store. For permanent inventory moves the relocate screen is used. This screen also allows for bulk inventory movement and as well as automated returns logic to assist in determining where inventory should be returned to if it is left dropped off to at an unattended returns location by an unknown student.
Users can assign specific attributes to each catalog item or physical inventory including Manufacturer, Product Categories (e.g., disposables, instruments, implant etc), price and Due Back Date Timer, expiration dates and more. Additionally, implants that have been used can be tracked as to which patient it was placed in as well as what type of procedure it was and where in the mouth it was implanted.
How To: Search Inventory & Management
Users can search for on-hand inventory in locations they have roles and permissions to access. Inventory is organized by logical ownership (Department owning the equipment) and its current physical location (Inventory Location). Virtually any inventory attribute can be used as search criteria, and the results can be grouped, sorted, and filtered according to user preferences. These searches can then be saved by users to their individual profiles and re-used later to save time for commonly used searches. Data can also be downloaded to a .csv file if needed for other purposes.
Users may also view and download individual transactions of inventory based on specified search criteria such as date range, origin/destination location, and catalog items transferred. If necessary, they can also download either a summary report or detailed list of all items in all transfers.
Users are given two separate download options for this screen: a simplified view matching that which is seen on screen, or a more detailed list of all items in all transfers
Hosted by WebOps on an Amazon AWS Dynamo database, data is easily accessible via a Redshift data warehouse for analytics, reporting, and other customer needs. Integration to other systems including the school purchasing and financial systems and electronic medical record systems is available via API. Access to the various features and functions is set by the school by assigning roles and permissions to each user to accommodate their job requirements. Join us later as we reveal more about what you can do with WebOps Dispensary for Dental Schools. If you want to test it out yourself contact us to request a demo!