Consignment stock is physically in the hospital, but in many centres nobody can say at the same time what is there, what has been used and what must be claimed or returned. That gap between what sits in the store and what the hospital controls is where money and safety are lost.
What consignment is and why it slips out of control
Implants, prostheses and high-cost surgical supplies often reach the hospital on consignment: the supplier leaves them available and the hospital uses them when needed. The model makes sense because no hospital can buy every size and reference in advance. The problem is that control ends up split across three places: the surgical block, which uses the stock; purchasing, which manages it; and the supplier, which keeps its own account.
When each party has its own version, situations appear that any team will recognise:
- Stock that is used but not recorded in time. The implant is in the patient, but replenishment or invoicing take time to catch up.
- References that expire or stop moving. Nobody looks at them until they have to be returned, and sometimes it is already too late.
- Differences between what the hospital says and what the supplier says. They are settled by reviewing paperwork, at a cost in purchasing and nursing hours.
The regulation requires knowing what has been implanted
The European Medical Device Regulation (MDR, art. 27.9) requires healthcare institutions to be able to identify class III implants, and in Spain Royal Decree 192/2023 (art. 36.6) extends that duty to classes IIa and IIb. In practice, traceability of what is implanted is no longer an organisational choice but a requirement. And it is only reliable if it rests on the hospital’s own data, captured at the moment the product is used. National rules may go further in each country.
What changes when the hospital controls consignment stock
Controlling consignment does not mean turning it into owned stock. It means the hospital knows, at any moment, what material is on its premises, who owns it and when it was used. With that visibility:
- The surgical block finds the reference it needs without depending on a phone call.
- Purchasing reconciles with the supplier from a single record instead of an exchange of emails.
- Product identification (UDI) is captured at the point of use, and each implant is linked to the procedure and patient concerned.
Five questions before you start
Before changing anything, the hospital should be able to answer these:
- Which suppliers hold consignment stock, and how much value does it represent together?
- Is it known today, without consulting paperwork, what is in each location?
- How long does a record take to update after the material is used in theatre?
- How much of the difference with suppliers is down to late records?
- Which systems should share information with consignment control (purchasing, ERP, surgical scheduling)?
It is best to leave the last one open. The platform gives visibility on its own, and its full value comes from integration with those systems, with a scope defined in each project.
Start with one specialty
There is no need to cover the whole surgical block. A specialty with a lot of consignment stock, such as orthopaedics or interventional cardiology, lets you measure within a few weeks how much material there is, how much moves and how long each use takes to close. With those data, the conversation with suppliers is based on facts.
To see how this control is organised, read our Implants and consignment stock solution. To see how the regulation reaches daily routine, read our article on UDI traceability.