By Safock Procurement Research Team7 min read
St. Mary's has 400 blood culture bottle sets that expire in 35 days. It uses about 6 a day, so it will get through 210 of them. The other 190, worth $2,128, will expire on the shelf. North Campus, in the same health system, uses 9 a day and has room for 165 of them, as long as they ship within the next 26 days.
Across the four sites in this example, $8,710 of stock is set to expire before it is used where it sits. Ten transfers rescue $5,108 of it, after paying for the transfers. Finding them takes two numbers per lot, and acting before the window closes.
Use stock first expired, first out (FEFO): the earliest expiry date goes first, regardless of when it arrived. Then, for each lot, in expiry order:
Usable = site's daily usage × days left − what earlier-expiring lots will already use
At risk = quantity on hand − usable
For the blood culture sets at St. Mary's: 6 a day × 35 days = 210 usable. 400 − 210 = 190 at risk, worth $2,128 at $11.20 each.
The usage figure matters more than the expiry date. A lot with 90 days left is safe at a site that uses it heavily and at risk at a site that barely touches it. In this example, where the stock sits causes most of the risk.
The Expiry & Transfer Planner's sample is a health system with four sites: North Campus, St. Mary's, Harbor Surgery and Westside Clinic. Seven items, 23 lots, $35,416 of stock. Nine lots are at risk:
| Site | Item | On hand | Days left | Used per day | At risk | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Mary's | Blood culture bottle set | 400 | 35 | 6 | 190 | $2,128.00 |
| St. Mary's | Enteral formula 1.5 kcal | 320 | 18 | 6 | 212 | $2,067.00 |
| Westside Clinic | Rapid strep test kit | 250 | 30 | 2 | 190 | $1,235.00 |
| Westside Clinic | Heparin flush 10 mL | 600 | 40 | 3 | 480 | $888.00 |
| St. Mary's | Enteral formula 1.5 kcal (second lot) | 400 | 70 | 6 | 88 | $858.00 |
| Westside Clinic | Blood culture bottle set | 60 | 20 | 0.5 | 50 | $560.00 |
| Westside Clinic | Lidocaine 1% 20 mL | 180 | 25 | 1.5 | 143 | $484.50 |
| Westside Clinic | Ondansetron 4 mg | 400 | 28 | 2 | 344 | $309.60 |
| North Campus | Ondansetron 4 mg | 1,200 | 50 | 20 | 200 | $180.00 |
| Total | $8,710.10 |
Westside Clinic shows a familiar multi-site pattern. It holds stock in the same pack sizes and order quantities as the hospitals, but uses a fraction as much. Six hundred heparin flushes at 3 a day will last 200 days. They have 40.
A transfer works when the receiving site can use the stock before it expires. The planner checks three things for each at-risk lot.
The most valuable at-risk stock is placed first. In the example that gives ten transfers:
| Item | From | To | Qty | Ship within | Value | Net of transfer cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blood culture bottle set | St. Mary's | North Campus | 165 | 26 days | $1,848.00 | $1,803.00 |
| Rapid strep test kit | Westside Clinic | North Campus | 130 | 21 days | $845.00 | $800.00 |
| Enteral formula (second lot) | St. Mary's | North Campus | 88 | 61 days | $858.00 | $813.00 |
| Heparin flush 10 mL | Westside Clinic | St. Mary's | 420 | 31 days | $777.00 | $732.00 |
| Rapid strep test kit | Westside Clinic | Harbor Surgery | 60 | 21 days | $390.00 | $345.00 |
| Enteral formula | St. Mary's | Harbor Surgery | 32 | 9 days | $312.00 | $267.00 |
| Lidocaine 1% 20 mL | Westside Clinic | Harbor Surgery | 60 | 16 days | $204.00 | $159.00 |
| Ondansetron 4 mg | North Campus | St. Mary's | 150 | 41 days | $135.00 | $90.00 |
| Heparin flush 10 mL | Westside Clinic | Harbor Surgery | 60 | 31 days | $111.00 | $66.00 |
| Blood culture bottle set | St. Mary's | Westside Clinic | 7 | 26 days | $78.40 | $33.40 |
| Total | $5,558.40 | $5,108.40 |
Write-offs fall from $8,710.10 to $3,151.70.
Two of those three are timing. Stock that is found while it still has months left has many more places to go than stock found with a few weeks left.
| Setting | Transfers | Net saved | Written off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default: 2 days transit, $45 a transfer | 10 | $5,108 | $3,152 |
| 5 days transit | 10 | $5,050 | $3,210 |
| $150 a transfer | 7 | $4,184 | $3,476 |
| $300 a transfer | 6 | $3,230 | $3,680 |
| Same stock, planned 10 days later | $3,556 |
The cost of a transfer matters more than the transit time: at $300 a move, small transfers stop being worth making. That favours regular scheduled runs between sites, such as a weekly van, over one-off couriers. And the last row is the case for planning weekly.
Enter a lot and one other site that uses the same item. The defaults are the blood culture sets at St. Mary's and North Campus.
One lot, two sites · same logic as the full planner
This site
The other site
Free tool
Expiry Risk & Inter-Site Transfer Planner
Upload every site's lots with expiry dates, daily usage and cost, and get the at-risk value by site, a transfer plan with ship-by dates, and the write-offs left over, downloadable as a CSV.
Runs in your browser. No sign-up.
Spoilage can be the largest part of inventory carrying cost for perishable stock, so this routine goes straight at the biggest cost of holding it.
For each lot, multiply the site’s daily usage by the days left until expiry. That is how much the site can use in time, using the earliest-expiring stock first. Anything above it is at risk. A site with 400 units, 35 days left and usage of 6 a day can use 210; 190 are at risk.
First expired, first out: using the stock with the earliest expiry date first, regardless of when it arrived. It is the right rotation rule for anything with a shelf life, and it is the order in which at-risk stock should be calculated.
When another site uses the item, has room to use the transferred stock before it expires on top of its own stock, can receive it with enough shelf life left, and the stock is worth more than the cost of moving it.
Enough for the receiving site to use it and for its own rules on short-dated stock. The planner in this guide uses at least 7 days on arrival by default. Agree a minimum with the sites that receive stock, especially for clinical or food items.
Every day of waiting leaves less time to ship, less time for the receiving site to use the stock, and fewer sites with room for it. In the example in this guide, running the same plan 10 days later moved $989 less stock and wrote off $404 more.