Why Growing Veterinary Hospitals Are Rethinking Inventory Management
Inventory management might not be the first topic we get asked about, but when it does come up, it's often from a place of mounting frustration:
😖 Why is this still so hard to manage?
😨 How much is this costing us?
🤔 Is there a better way to keep track of what we have?
For a small veterinary hospital, managing inventory might feel simple. You set up a couple of cabinets, hang a clipboard with an Expo marker, and manage the rest in a spreadsheet—easy enough.
But simple, scrappy processes can’t keep up with hospital growth forever. Eventually, you’re juggling backorders and outdated drugs and jolting awake in the middle of the night, wondering, “Did I remember to order Bordetella vaccines?”
Here’s a stat that might surprise you: Inventory and inventory management are among the highest costs for veterinary practices, second only to staffing.
This represents a huge impact on the financial health of veterinary practices, with an estimated 25% to 35% of inventory-related expenses dedicated to its management, including time spent placing orders, receiving inventory, and counting stock, as well as addressing discrepancies.
So, how do you shift from reacting to veterinary inventory management issues to actually solving them? It starts with making inventory management part of your daily workflow, not an afterthought.
The Problem with “Good Enough” Systems
Many growing veterinary hospitals start out managing inventory with makeshift tools, like sticky notes, clipboards, and spreadsheets.
They work!
… until they don’t.
As your caseload grows and your team gets stretched thin, scrappy systems start to show their limits. What used to feel “good enough” suddenly can’t keep up. And that’s when even small inefficiencies start to compound into big problems:
- Missed charges and billing gaps
- Stockouts that delay patient care
- Manual tracking that eats into your team’s time
- Rising costs from expired products and overordering
And if your inventory management system isn’t connected to your PIMS—or you’re still tracking inventory by hand—you're probably missing opportunities to capture revenue, reduce overhead, and free your team to focus on patient care.
A Better Approach: Inventory That Works Like Your Team
If you’re using Instinct EMR, you already have access to Stockroom, our built-in veterinary hospital inventory management tool.
Instead of treating inventory as an afterthought, Stockroom brings it into the heart of hospital operations.
📦 Real-time tracking without the extra steps
Inventory is automatically updated as your team completes treatments. That means:
- Always-current counts, with no manual entry
- Clear indicators when products drop below minimum levels
- Accurate usage data to help you make smart reorder decisions
No more sticky notes or delayed manual entries.
🔧 Fully connected to your workflow
Because Stockroom lives inside your EMR, there’s no need to juggle extra logins or patch together reports from different systems. Your inventory data is synced with treatment sheets, billing, and product usage history, so you can have one source of truth.
This connected approach helps:
- Reduce missed charges
- Improve visibility for bundled or grouped items
- Keep your whole team on the same page
Caleb Frankel, VMD
🧰 Analytics that keep you in the know
Instinct Stockroom gives you real-time insights into what’s on hand, what’s moving (or not), and how much you’re spending. You can track:
- Inventory valuation
- Cost of goods sold
- Stockouts
- Supplier trends
Use filters like location, product tag, and priority level to slice the data in ways that actually matter to your hospital.
Want to focus your attention where it matters most? You can use filters like tags and usage data to apply a version of ABC analysis.
Because Stockroom is fully embedded into Instinct EMR, you can track usage, costs, and trends without leaving your workflow.
⚖️ Customizable setup
No two hospitals manage inventory the same way, so we built Stockroom to be customizable. With a bit of upfront setup, you can:
- Tag products by category (think vaccines, fluids, surgical supplies)
- Create bundles for non-billable consumables
- Group similar SKUs (like Rx and IH versions of the same med)
Once enrolled, products can be tracked by lot number, expiration date, and quantity. Updating stock counts is simple, whether you’re doing a cycle count or managing backstock across multiple rooms.
Rachel Williams
🏥 Built for teams (not just admins)
Most top-performing hospitals don’t rely on a single person to manage 100% of the hospital’s inventory. With Stockroom, your whole team can play a part just by doing their job.
- Techs complete treatments → inventory updates
- Managers review stock levels and reports
- Anyone with access can view, filter, and track what’s on hand in real time (and access levels are customizable to your hospital needs)
And because Instinct runs just as well on a tablet as it does on your primary workstation, you can access Stockroom from the treatment area or the supply closet (or anywhere with internet, really).
Why Inventory Isn’t Just an Operations Problem
It might sit under “operations” in your org chart (if you have one of those), but inventory management affects every corner of your hospital.
When it’s working, everything else tends to work better, too.
- Finance: Keep tabs on cost of goods sold and reduce waste from overordering or expired products.
- Medical: Ensure critical medications and supplies are always where they need to be.
- Front office and client service: Avoid frustrating delays when something’s unexpectedly out of stock.
- Compliance: Stay ahead of controlled substance tracking and expired inventory headaches.
A smarter system doesn’t just make your shelves look tidier. It makes your entire team more efficient, prepared, and confident.
If you’re tired of playing the “Are we out of ___ again?” guessing game, we’ve got you. Instinct Stockroom brings inventory management into your hospital’s daily workflow, so you can stop chasing stockouts and start working smarter. Book a tour, and we’ll show you how!
If you’re already an Instinct hospital, you can request Stockroom access here. Our team will be in touch to set you up!