Mobile Applications Integrated to Modeling and Simulation: An Accessible Tool for Strategic Stock Management of Clinical Supplies

Abstract

In COVID-19 times, expenditures and investments on health clinics must be rigorously evaluated so that there are no excesses and shortages. Thus, a structure that integrates some of the most used technologies today, such as: mobile applications, cloud computing, data analytics, modeling and simulation to discrete events; is presented in this paper as an accessible tool for health clinics. Real data from six months of analysis in a medium-sized health clinic situated at a university in Belo Horizonte, guided the demand, design, implementation and testing of the developed tool. As results, the following items were obtained: a mobile application for inventory management, with authentication control (of teachers, students and others involved) and access levels; a cloud computing structure for data consolidation and feasibility for data analytics; and a modeling and simulation structure, based on stochastically timed Petri nets (STPN) for the evaluation of continuous or fixed supply replenishment contracts. As contributions, this solution includes: consolidation of input stock data; smart spending management; in addition to the ability to simulate scenarios to assess the effects of contracting replenishment of inputs in the health area. Questions like: what is the best form of replacement contract? is it better to buy an entire stock or stipulate continuous replenishment? These and other questions can be answered by the simulator developed via STPN helping clinics and hospitals of different sizes on the management of their supplies.