In the past, hospitals were places where patients underwent surgeries, recovered and convalesced. They still do today of course, but these days, surgeries require a large amount of special parts, that are either used and thrown away, or are implanted directly into the patient’s body.
These parts are typically stored in cupboards or boxes in the hospital’s supply store. Inventory tracking, keeping records of the material requisitions and replenishment are still manually done, or at the most, some basic forms of computerized databases are used. However, the keying in of data is still manually done at many places. Typically, a doctor or paramedic, will issue a written requisition to the store for a part, say a catheter. This part will be retrieved by the store staff from the store shelf, checked for its shelf life and then issued. Data entries into the system will be done manually perhaps at the end of the day. In large hospitals, this process will be repeated many times for many items, every single day.