Reducing Pharmaceutical and Non-Pharmaceutical Inventory Waste in Tertiary Hospital: Impact of ABC-VEN Analysis in a Zero-Waste Strategy Over 7 Years

Menyfah Q Alanazi,1– 3,&ast; Eyad K Alkhadhairi,3 Waleed H Alrumi,4 Sami A Alajlan3,&ast; 1Drug Policy and Economics Center, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard-Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 2King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 3Logistics and Contracts Management, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard - Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 4Expenditure Efficiency and Projects Authority, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Menyfah Q Alanazi, Drug Policy and Economics Center, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard-Health Affairs, Riyadh, 11426, Saudi Arabia, Tel +966118011111, Email menefah@gmail.comAim: To evaluate the prevalence and trend of inventory waste in a tertiary hospital over the last 7 years. This included the type and average monetary value (MV) of inventory waste, as well as the outcome of using the Always-Better-Control (ABC)-Vital-Essential-Non-essential (VEN) matrix as part of a Zero-Waste Strategy.Methods: This was a retrospective observational study conducted at King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC) over 7 years.Results: The prevalence of waste was 0.21%, which equates to (SAR) 15 million out of SAR 7 billion. The pharmaceutical inventory had significantly higher waste in terms of MV and the number of items (89.8%, and 80.3%, respectively) (P< 0.001). The expired pharmaceutical inventory had a significantly higher waste of MV than non-moving and obsolete inventory (79.8%, 14.3%, and 5.9%, respectively) (P< 0.001). The ABC-VEN matrix categorized the inventory into Category I, which has the highest MV waste at 82.3%, followed by Category II with 16.8%, and then Category III with 0.9%. However, category II had a significantly higher number of wasted items at (58.2%), followed by Category I (24%) and Category III (17.8%) (P< 0.01). The majority of MV waste consisted of a small number of pharmaceutical items that had a high clinical impact, representing 66% and 18%, respectively. After implementing a zero-waste strategy for landfills using the ABC-VEN matrix, the prevalence of waste declined from 0.9% to 0.21%. The waste sent to the landfill was zero from 2018 through 2020, saving 73.64% of the total money.Conclusion: The use of the ABC-VEN matrix positively impacted the reduction of MV waste. The prevalence and trend rate of inventory waste were lower than the benchmarks of global companies, saving more than two-thirds of the inventory value that would have been wasted. The majority of the wasted MV consisted of a small number of pharmaceutical items that had a significant clinical impact.Keywords: expired pharmaceutical inventory, non-moving inventory, obsolete inventory, Saudi Arabia, prevalance of inventory waste, employee engagement, rate of inventory waste