New HSV Distribution Centre becomes Victorian RAT hub

HealthShare Victoria (HSV) opened Victoria’s largest distribution centre for public health goods in December 2021 and it has already proved valuable as a hub for Victoria’s Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs).

HSV has sourced more than 65 million RATs for whole-of-Victorian-government use to the end of February 2022. This is part of HSV’s overall mega-order of 200 million RATs, achieving total savings of more than $400 million. 

The HSV Distribution Centre (DC) in Derrimut quickly became Victoria’s RAT hub.

“The RATs are our largest single inbound delivery to date and our new team has been busy stepping up to quickly accommodate such a large order,” says HSV Executive Director Supply Chain Mili Cohen.

“The RATs are being distributed quickly for state-wide whole of government use, including at Victorian public hospitals and schools,” says Mili.

The arrival of the first RATs is the culmination of months of work across multiple teams at HSV, who worked through significant challenges to secure the order as soon as the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved the RATs in November 2021.

The DC is a central part of HSV’s work to transform Victoria’s health sector supply chain.

As well as the RATs, the DC stocks an inventory of more than 2,000 medical and health-related goods and facilitates the supply of non-stock items for the Royal Melbourne Hospital group HSV’s first health service customers which collectively order 30 per cent of goods required by public hospitals in Victoria.

Stock will continue to increase as HSV extends its supply chain services to other metropolitan, regional and rural health services statewide in 2022 and beyond.

The next milestone in the supply chain project is the implementation of an Oracle Financial Management Information System (FMIS) and Oracle Warehouse Management System (WMS), with the solution design of these additional functions well advanced ahead of their expected go-live in March.