Medical Readiness

DOD Can Improve Management of Dated Drug Items Held as War Reserves Gao ID: NSIAD-87-38 January 9, 1987

GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) handling of dated medical supplies held as pre-positioned war-reserves (PWR), specifically DOD implementation of several proposals to reduce replacement costs.

GAO noted that, if all the military services stocked a 60-day supply of dated medical supplies, the total inventory would probably exceed $390 million by the mid-1990's, with annual replacement costs of over $110 million if the services do not implement cost-reduction efforts. GAO found that: (1) since the services have not stocked their full 60-day supply, replacement of dated PWR items cost about $9 million in fiscal year 1985; (2) DOD has several proposals for reducing replacement costs and making better use of dated medical supplies, including extending shelf-life, stocking a specified quantity of each item, and rotating more items; and (3) although the proposals have a high potential for reducing costs, DOD has not formulated a plan to ensure evaluation and implementation of the proposals in a systematic and timely manner.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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