Consigned Inventory Management

Background

Many hospital assets are sold and managed on the hospital premises by their suppliers, who only issue invoices for them when they are used. Both the supplier and the hospital need maximum visibility to this consigned inventory. Additionally, they need confidence that storage, usage, ordering and invoicing is both timely and secure.  This requires a three-tiered “security-by-design” strategy that protects all communication between system elements and also brings trust and “always-on” connectivity to each of them.

How your facility could benefit

Protect the integrity of the consignment inventory management systems that you rely on to improve efficiency. Mitigate the risks of counterfeit products entering your supply chain. And remove the vulnerabilities that hackers use in any Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) systems to attack safety-critical medical devices or the core network, or to disrupt the reliable operation of asset-tracking systems.

With a secure and trusted consigned inventory management system, you can:

• Prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access to consigned inventory status.
• Replace cumbersome Unique Device Identification (UDI) labels and barcodes with an IoT-based solution that streamlines the inventory management process and improves safety, efficiency and consigned-inventory visibility.
• Go beyond simply gathering the consigned inventory item’s  lot and serial numbers and expiration dates to ensuring that the item has been maintained to temperature and other environmental requirements. 
• Defend against counterfeits and improper use of legitimate medical equipment and consumables in your consigned inventory. Examples include controlled substances that must be correctly dosed to the intended individual, and x-ray plates that must be used with a given imaging system for a specified patient. Any item of consigned inventory that has not been authenticated is a potential counterfeit in the supply chain. 

How Thirdwayv connects and secures it

Thirdwayv solutions give both the medical device manufacturer and hospital administrators the confidence to rely on consigned inventory management systems for securely improving the visibility they need while also automating all ordering and invoicing process as each item is used.  

Our use of multiple layers of protection is especially important for consigned inventory management systems that use smartphone apps for command and control. Through these layers, we start by protecting the communications channel between the smartphone app, the inventoried medical device or consumable, and the cloud, each of which is vulnerable to malware and wireless channel cybersecurity attacks. The next layer validates the integrity of each user, smartphone app, consumable, associated devices and the cloud, and ensure the seamless connectivity that is critical for exchanging data, updating firmware over-the-air, and administering alerts. 

Even better, our solutions can be implemented in a modular fashion to meet a wide range of application scenarios using third-party software development kits (SDKs).