Research, development, and evaluation of the practical effect of a storage inflow and outflow management system for consumables in the endocrinology department of a hospital

BACKGROUND: This study was designed for the research and development (R&D) and application of a storage inflow and outflow management system enabling departments to perform efficient, scientific, and information-based consumable management. METHODS: In the endocrinology department of a hospital, expert and R&D teams in consumable management were set up, and an information-based storage inflow and outflow management system for consumables was designed and developed. The system was operated on a personal computer and was divided into three modules: public consumables, bed consumables, and quality control management. The functions of the system included storage inflow and outflow, early warnings, response to user queries, and statistics on consumables. Data were derived from the hospital information system (HIS,ZHIY SOFTWARE HIS VERSION4.0) and a questionnaire survey. Economic indicators, work efficiency of consumable management, nurse burnout, consumable stockroom management, and staff satisfaction were compared under manual management, Excel-based management, and the consumable storage inflow and outflow management system. The results of the questionnaire were analysed using the R software, version 4.1.0. RESULTS: Dates were obtained from manual management, Excel-based management and the consumable storage inflow and outflow management system. Under these three methods, the daily prices of department consumables per bed were 53.43 ± 10.27 yuan, 38.65 ± 8.56 yuan, and 31.98 ± 7.36 yuan, respectively, indicating that the new management system reduced costs for the department. The time spent daily on consumable management was shortened from 119.5 (106.75, 123.5) min to 56.5 (48.5, 60.75) to 20 (17.25, 24.25) min. Nurses’ emotional fatigue and job indifference scores, respectively, decreased from 22.90 ± 1.65 and 8.75 ± 1.25 under manual management to 19.70 ± 1.72 and 6.90 ± 1.37 under Excel-based management and to 17.20 ± 2.04 and 6.00 ± 1.30 under the novel system; the satisfaction of the warehouse keeper and collection staff, respectively, increased from 76.62% and 80.78% to 91.6% and 90.5% to 98.8% and 98.5% under the three successive systems. CONCLUSIONS: The storage inflow and outflow management system achieved produced good results in the storage and classification of consumables. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12911-021-01744-y.