Understanding POU Supplier Systems

This section discusses:

  • General assumptions about POU supplier systems.

  • Definition of items and par locations.

  • Chunking Rules for streamlining POU supplier integration processes.

  • POU suppliers as par locations in PeopleSoft Inventory.

  • Returns to vendors (RTVs) for POU supplier items.

You can integrate PeopleSoft Inventory par location functionality with POU supplier systems. This integration consists of generic EIPs, using service operations in PeopleSoft Integration Broker to exchange applicable par location, item counts, and expected receipt information between the PeopleSoft system and the POU supplier.

This topic describes the implementation of a full integration between POU medical supply dispensing cabinets and PeopleSoft. The use of POU supplier systems for issuing medical supplies is prevalent in today's typical hospital environment. POU supplier systems maintain available stores of medical supplies for the immediate and ad hoc needs of a hospital's surgical, nursing, and distribution staff during normal operations. A POU supplier system maintains on-hand quantities at all times and records patient usage as it occurs.

A POU supplier system can be a complete standalone system, but it is usually integrated with a hospital's materials management information system (MMIS), such as PeopleSoft Inventory and PeopleSoft Purchasing. Integrating a POU supplier system with an MMIS can help a health care organization achieve maximum benefit from its investments on both fronts.

In this integration scenario, the PeopleSoft system is responsible for:

  • Defining and maintaining the par location and item information.

  • Issuing stock from inventory to the par locations.

  • Performing the receipt of purchased goods.

  • Replenishing the materials to the par locations.

The POU supplier systems are responsible for:

  • Keeping track of the stock on hand in the POU locations.

  • Capturing the use of the medical supplies issued.

    That use can in turn be charged directly to a specific patient's account. If the charges are made directly to patient accounts, the POU supplier system is also usually integrated with the hospital's patient accounting or clinical systems.

The POU supplier system integration works as designed only if you understand the following assumptions and your system complies with them:

  • Because patient usage is recorded in the POU supplier system and not in PeopleSoft Inventory, the material usage and reconciliation feature in PeopleSoft Inventory should not be used.

    Any reconciliation procedures must be handled by the POU supplier system.

  • If you use POU supplier systems in some locations and PeopleSoft Inventory par locations in others, and if you plan to use the consumer usage feature, you need to set up two feeds to the admission, discharge, and transfers and patient billing systems: one from PeopleSoft and one from the POU supplier system.

  • If a POU supplier is reconfigured, for example, if bins are removed, added, or moved, the physical reconfiguration of the POU supplier needs to occur first, followed by the manual online maintenance of the par location in PeopleSoft Inventory.

    The Par Location EIP transactions are then published to update the supplier accordingly.

  • All par locations, whether integrated with a POU supplier system or not, are replenished using the PeopleSoft Inventory Create Par Replenishment Requests process (INPGCDMD).

All item and par location data is set up and maintained in the PeopleSoft system. However, a successful integration with a POU supplier depends on understanding how the POU supplier system uses the fields that you define in the PeopleSoft system. Here are two important points to keep in mind:

  • The charge code and the usage tracking method (charge type) are required fields for every item in the par location for use with POU supplier systems.

    Because the POU suppliers pass patient usage information directly to a patient billing system, these two pieces of information are vital. Both fields are part of the par location definition created in the Par Location Definition component, and they are included in the par location data that PeopleSoft Inventory sends to the POU supplier system.

  • The same item can exist in a par location in both the PeopleSoft system and POU supplier system.

    The compartment in the PeopleSoft system and the bin in the POU supplier both identify the unique location of an item in the POU par location. The POU supplier's bin is a system-generated, assigned field and the PeopleSoft system's compartment field cannot be fed into it. The POU supplier system needs to process the PeopleSoft compartment information separately to avoid data update conflicts.

You can use the PeopleSoft chunking methodology to reduce the volume of data that are sent in the outbound publishing process. Chunking enables you to segment a transaction by business unit and location or par location and define which nodes receive the specific information. This functionality is especially helpful if not all of your subscribing nodes need to receive the data published by all departments. For example, you can set up processes so that business units and locations that exist as subscribers in third-party systems receive only the data that are specifically published for them according to the chunking rules and node maps that you implement.

PeopleTools: Integration Broker

Rather than setting up POU suppliers as PeopleSoft Inventory business units, you can set up your system to track POU suppliers as par locations within PeopleSoft Inventory. In this case, par location replenishment transactions for affected items must be subject to the same replenishment rules in PeopleSoft Inventory or PeopleSoft Purchasing.

However, the PeopleSoft system is not responsible for consumer charges because POU supplier systems pass this information to the consumer accounting system. The direct purchase and direct inventory issue processes to the POU suppliers should remain as originally designed in the PeopleSoft system.

A PeopleSoft Purchasing RTV should be created if an incorrect item is delivered for replenishing a POU supplier. This kind of mistake is typically discovered at the main loading dock of the health care facility. However, if the item has already been received into PeopleSoft Purchasing, a transaction will have already been published to the POU supplier system. In this case, the POU supplier never receives the shipment and the system never fills the PO Receipt Notification transaction that is issued for the item.