Reflecting the industry’s challenge with addressing the various impacts of healthcare reform, the SMI Forum was "kicked off" by a keynote address from Emily Friedman, an independent health policy analyst and highly regarded industry speaker. Friedman offered her perspectives on the many changes and challenges that healthcare should expect to see as healthcare reform programs begin to take hold while our nation simultaneously continues to experience demographic shifts. Friedman encouraged the SMI members to be innovative when dealing with the expected rapid, large scale changes, all the while entertaining the audience with a variety of humorous anecdotes to drive home her points.

Teri Gallagher

Leaders from Advocate Health System in the Chicago market built on the keynote message by then sharing with the SMI members their playbook for taking on the challenges of reform. Both Mark C. Shields, M.D., Vice President for Medical Management and Senior Medical Director of Advocate Physician Partners, and Thomas M. Lubotsky, Vice President Supply Chain shared details of the strategic changes that Advocate Health System and its supply chain division have undertaken. Among the significant changes they discussed for Advocate has been the engagement of physicians, where physicians are strategically aligned with the health system and are now involved and actively engaged in areas where they traditionally were not involved. For Advocate’s supply chain, this means that the doctors are now an integral part of the supply chain team. This strategic organizational shift has led supply chain leaders and staff to undertake a series of changes. "It is as much about re-thinking as it is re-engineering!" said Lubotsky. The value of the supply chain function is expanding under the reformed environment, Lubotsky advised, as product selection and product performance become even more important. "We are entering the era where analytics and decision support are critical supply chain functions," Lubotsky said.

In addition to hearing from industry leaders, SMI members also participated in a number of separate interactive small-group sessions. Interactive lunch sessions were held where smaller groups of SMI members actively participated in taking "deeper dives" into industry hot topics like Envisioning The Next Generation Supply Chain Executive or Purchased Services – Under Control or Out of Control?. " Our members always rate these sessions high, as they enjoy the free-flowing exchange of ideas and opinions," said Tom Hughes, SMI’s Executive Director. " There is nowhere else in our industry that executives have the opportunity for such active peer-to-peer exchange."

Small group interaction continued later in the day as well, with four SMI Initiative Teams making maximum use of the valuable face time. Three Initiative Teams continued their work exploring the cutting edge topics ACOs and Supply Chain, Healthcare Supply Chain Uniquenesses and Differences, and Comparative Effectiveness Research and Supply Chain. In collaboration with the Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics, SMI also launched a fourth initiative at the Forum. This new initiative is focused on testing and validating a CIHL-created decision support tool that helps providers forecast the operational impacts of supply chain standards adoption. Both SMI and CIHL hope this software tool will be finalized by the Fall of 2011, helping to propel industry adoption of data standards to new heights.

The action-packed first day of the SMI Forum also featured a lively general session presentation with questions and answers about the Malcolm Baldridge Journey. Introduced by SMI Chairperson John Gaida of Texas Health Resources, this session focused on the pathways that organizations can take in pursuit of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award and how the journey helps organizations develop the tools and disciplines needed to produce exceptional results. Sherry Bright of Goonan Performance Strategies provided the SMI Members with background on the award and the journey required, while Mike Rosenblatt, Corporate VP of Supply Chain at SSM Health Care, shared with his fellow SMI members the details of his organization’s journey that led to their receiving the Baldridge Award in 2002.

Day two of the SMI Spring 2011 Forum featured more interactive small group sessions, with members participating in a variety of sessions led by industry leaders on topics like The Business of Pharmacy: Operational Efficiency, Patient Safety & Financial Performance and Optimizing the Last Mile of the Healthcare Supply Chain. Following these member-led sessions, the leaders of the four SMI Initiative Teams provided the membership with updates on their progress.

The closing session of the Forum was an excellent panel discussion by SMI’s key collaborators on the impact of healthcare reform beyond providers and suppliers. Leaders from Healthcare Purchasing News, AHRMM, CIHL, HIDA, GS1 Healthcare US, and Gartner Research explored and shared their thoughts on the ripple affects that reform is having on their sectors.