Fast Foreward

 Materials Management Week ebbs and flows

 

SWEPT AWAY? Materials Management Week, AHRMM’s noble and necessary gesture to recognize an important cog in a hospital’s crew, happened last month for the umpteenth year with not nearly enough deserving fanfare. Sure, AHRMM contributed five noteworthy suggestions for materials managers to celebrate the week. They included the following: "‘Throw ‘em a bone’ – hold an appreciation luncheon for your entire department. ‘Cheers your team’ – enjoy a morning cup of coffee with new MM Week drinkware. ‘Treat ‘em with goodies’ – raffle off the exclusive MM Week Sample Kit. Includes various tokens of appreciation from a business brief to a Pacesetter Pedometer. ‘Display it loud and proud’ – order the new larger-sized MM Week poster as well as the MM Week ‘wearables.’ ‘AHRMM your staff’ – give the gift of AHRMM membership. This provides them with numerous professional benefits, including exclusive resources, networking opportunities, and vital communications. Honestly, this is clever, creative stuff. However, we think two more should be added to the list. They are: Make sure the C-Suite – including key clinicians – host at least one of them. Not just participate, but host. MM Week should be promoted to the right people – not just materials managers. And the second once again is directed to the C-Suite: Give ‘em a raise (maybe in the amount of half the savings they negotiated in the last contract) and some respect. Even if the individual running the office doesn’t deserve the respect, at least the office does. MM Week should be on par with television’s sweeps week, where the networks pull out all the stops and air shockers to drive up ratings and artificially inflate ad rates. Otherwise, MM Week merely is swept under the rug. How shameful. If materials management didn’t exist a number of hospitals would be economically swept under the rug.

IF THEN. The recent AHRMM general session "If Disney Ran Your Hospital, You Would Make Courtesy More Important Than Efficiency" inspires us to conjure up other profound possibilities. This can be a good ice breaker at contentious product evaluation committee or "materials management gets raked through the coals by the board" meetings so take copious notes. "If Starbucks Ran Your Hospital, You Would Overpay For A Redecorated Commodity That Makes You Feel Good Until You Urinate It Out Two Hours Later." "If Wal-Mart Ran Your Hospital, You Would Pay Discounted Prices For Cheap Products You Didn’t Realize You Needed and Inefficient Services From Employees Who Didn’t Know How to Help You." "If American/United/Delta/Continental Airlines Ran Your Hospital, You Could Spend Wastefully, Declare Bankruptcy, Whine to the Federal Government, Get the Government To Bail You Out, Start The Cycle All Over Again." Wait a minute. Those last two sound pretty close to the healthcare industry’s reality today.

SNEAK PEAKS. Johnson & Johnson is suing Boston Scientific Corp. and Abbott Laboratories over BSCI’s acquisition of Guidant Corp. because BSCI allegedly allowed Abbott to look under Guidant’s financial hood before Abbott would buy a part of Guidant’s business BSCI needed to divest to evade antitrust concerns. At least we know where Guidant’s new boss sits with the whole "pricing confidentiality" thing.

CASH DASH. Medicare erroneously distributed $50 million in refunds to recipients, according to a report in The New York Times. As a result of the accounting mistake, Social Security’s projected insolvency date was adjusted by several weeks, leading some healthcare pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to cry foul.
"Hey now!" cried one unidentified CEO. "When we cook the books by recording quarterly projected sales as actual sales to give Wall Street a false impression of how successful we are we get hung out to dry by the SEC and The New York Times. When will heads start rolling in President Bush’s so-called ‘national-healthcare-IT-focused’ administration?" As soon as they locate those weapons of mass destruction, which may turn out to be hidden in those missing Dell laptops used by the IT-security-minded Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration.

Make haste, not waste, readers.

November
2006