With over 90 locations across the United States, Option Care Health knew that updating their inventory processes would be a huge undertaking. To help maintain consistency across their organization, they went on the hunt for a software partner that could extend Oracle Cloud’s functionality into their supply chain while supporting them with industry- leading experience.
“We envisioned a solution that made sure we had the key controls we needed to trace and track inventory,” said Logan Sizemore, Option Care Health’s Manger of Financial Systems. “RF-SMART came to our Louisville location to see our workflow processes and learn our business.” After consulting RF-SMART’s industry experts, Option Care Health chose to implement RF-SMART’s mobile materials management solution to streamline their inventory processes and keep Oracle Cloud as their operational system of truth.
Start at the Beginning
Before implementing RF-SMART, Option Care Health didn’t have real-time visibility into their stock levels. “All of our inventory receiving transactions were done with manual data entry into our dispensing system,” said Logan. Previously, a team member would take a pack list and write lot numbers and expiration dates down for every product. They would then travel across the warehouse to manually key in each lot number, quantity, and expiration date at a desktop. This process was time-consuming, error-prone, and caused significant user frustration. “To get buy in from our end users, we highlighted the time savings that they were going to see at receiving with RF-SMART,” said Logan. “We knew that it wasn’t feasible for our end users to do everything at a desktop, and we had to have a mobile solution that simplified receiving. RF-SMART did that for us.”
With RF-SMART, the Option Care Health staff now scans an item’s barcode, and the associated lot number auto- populates. “Our team simply scans through the process without being tethered to a computer,” said David Chook, Option Care Health’s Senior Director of Information Technology for Clinical Services. “This has cut our receiving time in half and makes us significantly more accurate.” These improvements have helped their team establish systems to maintain compliance without sacrificing time savings. “With RF-SMART in our facility, we wrote a receiving policy to be SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) Compliant,” said Robin Ward, Option Care Health’s Director of Operations Management. “With a simple scan, RF-SMART lets our users complete transactions, and allows us to track them from an accounting and process compliance perspective,” said Logan.
User Friendly
At the receiving dock and beyond, the Option Care Health team has seen significant improvements in their team member’s experience. “If I had a slogan for RF-SMART it would be ‘simplification,’” said Logan. Option Care Health decided to leverage RF-SMART’s ability to rename functions on their handheld menus, making each transaction easy to find for users on the floor. “Sometimes software solutions come with jargon that users may not comprehend, and it’s really critical that we can translate those terms into language we use in our operations,” said Logan. “RF-SMART’s configurability allowed us to change the vocabulary to fit our needs. That was a huge part of why we chose that solution.”
Beyond being highly configurable, RF-SMART directed users through each warehouse process with speed and accuracy. “RF-SMART guides users to the right transaction. They don’t need to know Oracle to know how to navigate the handheld,” said Logan. “Oracle allowed us the ability to have financial oversight into our supply chain, and RF-SMART simplified and streamlined the processes for our operational teams.”
Reviewing the Metrics
With all their inventory data being updated immediately in Oracle Cloud through RF-SMART, the Option Care Health team now utilizes those data points to make better decisions in planning, purchasing, and hiring. Every individual staff member on the floor has a unique identifier attached to their RF-SMART transactions, which produces user statistics that can be monitored in their business reports. “It’s extremely critical to have strong reporting,” said Logan. “We were able to leverage transactional reporting in Oracle at a user level to oversee productivity and compliance to the process.”
Not only are they using this data to assess their team’s productivity, but they are providing greater visibility to the staff themselves. Each week, management tracks which of their teammates are hitting their cycle count target metrics. “Our teammates can see how they’re ranked among the over 90 pharmacies we have,” said Robin. Each team member now has direct access to their personal and team metrics, including time to count, accuracy, key hit rate, and more. “This makes our staff more accountable,
and those results drive all the way through to the financials.”
The Importance of a Supportive Partner
As they continue to improve their materials management, Option Care Health leans on RF-SMART to help them optimize their processes. “We learn from Oracle and RF-SMART, and then take that and pyramid it down to our team,” said Logan. “There isn’t anything hard about learning RF-SMART’s system.” Option Care Health counts on this ease of use and scalable functionality as they prepare for the changing business challenges of tomorrow. “When we have a business problem or some challenge that is unique to our business, RF-SMART is always willing to create a solution to fix those issues,” said Logan. “That solutioning is critical for us.”