US Department of Defense Health Affairs
"With the use of BusinessObjects, we expect to reduce costs significantly. There is great potential for redirecting significant funds at each facility annually on medical and surgical products, with additional cost reductions from improved pharmaceutical management."
The Defense Medical Logistics Support System deployment manager, from the program management office in Health Affairs.
Company Overview
Defense Medical Logistics Support System (DMLSS) is a key program within the Military Health Services System organization, which is under the Assistant Secretary of Health for the US Department of Defense (DOD), a parent organization responsible for Army, Navy, and Air Force hospitals, clinics, and multiple outpatient facilities worldwide.
Business Challenge
DOD hospitals and clinics were faced with huge pharmaceutical inventories that were very costly and time consuming to manage. To address this issue, the DOD developed the DMLSS program, a transaction-processing application and data warehouse that uses BusinessObjects as the front-end decision support tool.
Selection Criteria
The Health Affairs Office conducted an extensive evaluation process for a front-end tool, and chose BusinessObjects because of its high ease of use, enterprise-wide deployability, and ability to pull information from multiple data sources.
The Winning Solution
Today, more than 4,000 end users worldwide access important information stored in the organization's data warehouse. BusinessObjects will be deployed to 10,000 users over the next few years.
BusinessObjects plays an integral role within the DMLSS system, by enabling end users to access detailed, descriptive data and online pricing information on pharmaceutical and medical/surgical items from multiple sources -- that previously could be obtained only through extensive manual search methods. End users can now cost effectively provide supplies when and where they need to, along with tracking drug expiration, which constitutes a large expense.
End users access data using BusinessObjects on Windows clients, residing on an INFORMIX-Online Dynamic Server and Aviion Servers from Data General.
Business Benefits
With the new system using BusinessObjects, the DOD has achieved a ten to one payback return on investment.
- The new system is expected to achieve cost avoidance of morethan $30.1 million per year for the organization, or $300 million over the ten year operations and maintenance period of the program.
- One hospital has avoided costs of $500,000 on prescription drugs alone.
- Before the DMLSS project and BusinessObjects, DOD hospitals had 60 to 150 days' worth of inventory and DOD medical facilities stored about $600 million in shelf inventory. Now, with the DMLSS program using BusinessObjects, many of the facilities have cut their inventories to less than 30 days' worth, reducing their need for warehouse space and workers.
