“In Swiss Post, we have found a partner that understands how a hospital operates”
Merian Iselin Clinic is located in the middle of a residential area in the city of Basel. Specializing in orthopaedics, surgery and urology, it is an essential pillar in the regional healthcare system. Like many clinics, the Merian Iselin Clinic is faced with the conflicting demands of optimizing costs, improving profitability and being an attractive employer.

Due to the clinic’s steady growth, the operating theatre infrastructure has reached its limits in recent times – particularly in terms of material storage. The clinic has therefore decided to outsource its central warehouse to Swiss Post,
enabling it to expand its operating theatre infrastructure in the space that has become available. The space gained ensures more efficient processes in the preparation and follow-up of operations and greater workplace safety. New cloakrooms offer staff greater convenience and make the workplace more attractive.

Swiss Post manages the clinic’s medical supplies along with those of other hospitals and healthcare facilities in the highly automated, swissmedic-certified Villmergen logistics center. Thanks to the large capacity and separate storage for each customer, Swiss Post guarantees optimum security of supply at all times.
It picks and packs goods for the clinic and delivers them exactly when they are needed, picking deliveries for each department’s warehouse or even individually for each patient’s case.

Swiss Post delivers the required materials to the clinic’s underground car park every day. The individual transport boxes can be transported directly to the relevant department thanks to the process of picking per goods recipient.
Outsourcing to Swiss Post reduces and standardizes deliveries by a significant amount. This lowers traffic on the roads in the neighbourhood around the Merian Iselin Clinic – which in turn decreases noise, exhaust fumes and traffic congestion.

The material supplied is in line with the clinic’s internal logistics processes. The supply assistants can start directly with the distribution and no longer have to repick anything.
Staff who previously had to spend a lot of time managing the central warehouse, receiving and picking goods, can now supply the departments’ warehouses. This in turn relieves the pressure on the nursing staff on the wards, leaving them with more time to focus on their core task of caring for their patients.

If the stock of an item in the department warehouse is running low, the supply assistants use the scanner to take the order on their distribution round. They send the order to the logistics center in Villmergen via an interface. Swiss Post picks the item there and delivers it within 24 hours after the order is placed. If necessary, Swiss Post will reorder the item directly from the supplier.

By taking care of repeat orders, Swiss Post relieves the clinic’s purchasing department of routine tasks, allowing them to concentrate on optimizing product ranges, evaluating new articles and suppliers and negotiating prices.
Swiss Post informs them when new items are to be added to the warehouse in Villmergen. This triggers the order and prefinances the items.

Stephan Fricker, CEO of the Merian Iselin Clinic, is pleased with the collaboration with Swiss Post: “In Swiss Post, we have found a partner that immediately understood the challenges we face in logistics and how a hospital operates. Outsourcing relieves our logistics managers and specialist medical staff of time-consuming logistics processes, allowing them to concentrate on their value-adding core tasks. This is why we are convinced that the collaboration will also have a positive economic impact on the success of our clinic.”