One of Hollywood’s favorite mantras goes something like this: Good publicity is better than bad publicity, but bad publicity is better than no publicity.

Such egocentric and narcissistic logic may work in Tinsel Town but it woefully wilts in hospital supply chain management circles – specifically those in an industry clobbered by cost overruns and hampered by healthcare reform threats.

But a revealing and thought-provoking survey commissioned and conducted by leading distributor Owens & Minor Inc. and Marquette University, with assistance from the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) offered a provocative view on supply chain management performance.

At the AHRMM 2009 conference in Tampa nearly two months ago, Jamie Kowalski, Owens & Minor’s vice president, business development, and colleague Cathy Patton, R.N., director, supply chain integration, presented the results of this comprehensive nursing satisfaction survey.

While the overall results shouldn’t be surprising, some of the underlying causal roots should be shocking in a profession that really can’t afford bad publicity or ill will when it’s needed most in a downright sluggish economy.

Before you start the eye-rolling and the here-we-go-again facial expressions, pay attention.

Kowalski has been conducting these useful surveys for years, primarily of CEOs and CFOs and their satisfaction (or lack thereof) with supply chain management’s performance. Though consistently projecting similar results, those C-suite surveys largely fell short of indicting supply chain managers on performance alone. Instead, and unfortunately, those surveys revealed that supply chain consistently simmered below the C-suite radar screen with many respondents perceiving their group purchasing organizations as handling those functions. Ouch.

Honestly, it might be easy to dismiss the results of these surveys as the misperceptions of elitist ivory tower types with a clear lack of understanding about what really happens in the trenches, or as the histrionic rants of clinicians with unreasonable demands and unrealistic expectations.

Either rationalization would be absolutely and unequivocally foolish. Completely stupid also comes to mind.

Kowalski and Patton weren’t referring to stay-in-my-comfort-zone wish lists of clinical tools and toys any more than Kowalski was referring to the C-suite expecting supply chain miracle work to rescue budgets from economic maladies and poor executive-level business decisions. No, they were referring to the basics, the fundamentals of the job that are just one step up the evolutionary ladder from breathing, eating and good hygiene habits. Of course, doctors still struggle with their hand-washing manners, but that’s another story.

More than 1,600 nurses feel they spend too much time on supply chain management activities! Not participating in product evaluation or value analysis committee meetings. Not filling out paper requisition orders or tapping on keyboards. Just finding stuff, putting things away and managing expiration dates! Hello?!!! These are skills our parents or other caregivers were supposed to teach us about our bedrooms as children.

If that sounds overly simplistic and narrow-minded it’s because it is. Here in the 21st Century, median supply chain management skills, talents and operational expectations have alighted far beyond the basics. If you’ve attended any healthcare operations conferences or read any of the trade publications within the last decade, you should know that healthcare supply chain management no longer is limited to picking, buying, storing, moving, processing and disposing of stuff. It also includes accounting, consulting, facilitating, forecasting, leading, marketing and even managing of people and processes well outside the realm of the basement, storeroom or warehouse.

But Owens & Minor’s and Marquette’s worthwhile efforts here shouldn’t be viewed as a condemnation of their customers or a profession but more as a wake-up call – a red alert in an industry awash in red ink.

Granted, just as there may be some nurses who will never change their impressions of supply chain management, there are some supply chain managers who never want to change. For the rest of you who want to make a difference, there’s still time. It’s fleeting, of course, no one can afford wheel-spinning inertia.