Transforming Hospital Pharmacy Inventory Management

Drug shortages continue to create significant financial and operational strain on hospitals, impacting both patient care and workforce efficiency. In a video interview with Pharma Commerce, Boyede Sobitan, global healthcare strategy lead, and Annika Matas, senior director of product management and business operations, supplies and sensors—both with Zebra Technologies—they describe how hospitals are increasingly forced to adapt to these challenges, often in unsustainable ways.

From a patient care perspective, the absence or delay of critical medications forces hospitals into difficult positions. Some have had to borrow drugs from neighboring institutions just to meet immediate needs. This creates not only logistical hurdles but also ethical concerns about equitable access to treatment.

Operational inefficiencies compound the problem. Sobitan noted that hospital staff sometimes misplace or unintentionally withhold highly sought-after drugs, leading to further shortages within the facility. Additionally, issues such as hospital diversions can exacerbate availability challenges, reducing reliability in already stressed systems. These situations underscore the importance of better inventory management and stronger oversight practices.

The impact extends beyond patient-facing concerns. Matas highlighted that nursing staff, whose primary role is to deliver direct patient care, often become entangled in logistical work. Nurses are spending increasing amounts of time tracking down medications, coordinating with pharmacy teams, or delaying procedures until necessary drugs arrive. This redirection of focus not only reduces staff efficiency but also heightens burnout risks in an already overstretched workforce.

Indirect costs quickly add up. Delayed treatments, longer hospital stays, and disruptions in surgical schedules strain financial resources and diminish overall hospital productivity. Ultimately, drug shortages create a ripple effect: patients experience delays in care, frontline staff face increased stress and inefficiencies, and hospital systems bear additional financial burdens.

Addressing these issues requires more robust supply chain solutions, improved communication between pharmacy and clinical teams, and greater systemic efforts to mitigate shortages before they impact patient safety and operational stability.

They also dive into the ways RFID and RTLS technologies can provide real-time visibility into medication inventory for hospital pharmacy teams; factors should hospitals consider when evaluating or implementing these systems to manage their medication inventory; the role these technologies could play in strengthening hospital supply chain resilience against future disruptions; and much more.

A transcript of their conversation with PC can be found below.

PC: In what ways can RFID technology provide real-time visibility into medication inventory for hospital pharmacy teams, while reducing medication loss and associated labor costs during shortages?

Matas: We've seen an emergence and growth in something called RFID cabinets. Those are cabinets that are able to keep track of RFID-tagged supplies inside the cabinets, so now you know what is in your inventory and where it is. Of course, at a supply room level, you're just able to take inventory significantly faster than what you would with normal either pen and paper methods or barcode scans, which are individual item level types of activities, so the cabinets can fully automate that visibility.

Even using a handheld RFID scanner in a supply room, you can very quickly take stock of what you have available and what you do not have available. The example that Boyede shared earlier where hospital staff may request medications for a patient, and then they may request different types of supplies and different types of medications, and only part of it ends up getting used, you can also more easily check things out and check them back in using RFID with simple handheld readers—even at the point of care—that say, this is what I ended up using. Then, the rest of this is due to go back in stock.

There’s a significant time savings when you think about RFID compared to a traditional barcode, the speed at which you can track and identify things, versus scanning boxes, scanning files, one at a time or even worse, if you have to write them up in a database with keystrokes.