Why keeping the right inventory can make all the difference for your Veterinary Clinic

Veterinary practices walk a fine line in their stock rooms between tying up too much capital in basic inventory, and not having essential items on hand.

With today’s growing consumer demands your customers expect diagnostic tests and treatment to be completed promptly and efficiently. The last thing your veterinary clinic wants is to find out you can’t run a necessary test or perform an emergency surgery due to a sudden shortage of important stock items.

This means that unless you have large storage facilities and deep pockets to hold a ready supply of everything you may ever need, inventory can be a challenge.

What can veterinary clinics and animal hospitals do to create a well-balanced stock of essential supplies and to practise effective inventory control?

Data management

A lot hinges on the technology you use to manage your inventory.

Simply having a ledger of what is coming in and what items are used is a starting point. However, if possible, your inventory system should be integrated with records of your procedures, tests and treatments, for example. 

This means you can correlate whether items are being used in an economically viable way, and whether normal inventory levels need to be amended.

You could also formulate inventory flow charts. For example, how many cruciate surgeries do you complete over a three month period? What veterinary orthopedic implants do you use most often? Look for implants that can be used for multiple cases such as a veterinary cuttable fracture plate.

From this sort of data, you can create an ordering system that provides just the right level of stock, on a sustainable basis.

Consolidation and control

A complex ordering system and multiple suppliers can be confusing and create unnecessary delays. It can be more efficient to consolidate inventory supply, and secure a partnership with a flexible and responsive supplier.


Keeping pace in your lab

Veterinary laboratory supplies can be hard to predict, as usage can be erratic with emergency cases. Try to focus on tests you run regularly like wellness profiles and pre-anesthetic tests.

Closely monitoring what’s on your shelves as well as in your digital records can be vital. A sudden upsurge in need could mean what appears in your inventory database doesn’t correlate with what’s actually available to you in your lab.

For situations such as this, Heska Canada Limited can be invaluable.

We don’t just supply veterinary orthopedic implants and veterinary laboratory supplies, we hold stock for you. From our headquarters in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, we can quickly deliver all types of replacement stock for veterinary practices, in as little as one business day.

Heska's own comprehensive inventory of veterinary orthopedic implants, dental supplies and laboratory reagent supplies, including large quantities of the most in-demand items, means our shelves are never empty! We are here to ensure that you receive your inventory quickly and accurately so that you can provide uninterrupted, high-quality veterinary care year round to your clients.