SMI – Firmly focused on the future

by Dennis Orthman, CMRP, senior director, SMI

At the recent SMI Fall 2011 Forum, over one hundred recognized supply chain thought-leaders from providers, manufacturers, distributors, and service companies gathered for an intense two-day working Forum that focused on the future of the healthcare supply chain industry and the changes needed to promote success. SMI Members were welcomed by John Gaida, Chairman of SMI’s Board, with a video montage highlighting SMI’s mission to help shape the future of the healthcare supply chain.

The SMI Forum features a combination of small breakout and discussion groups, supplemented by pertinent and topical general sessions. Kicking off the Forum was a keynote address and presentation entitled Health Care 2020, delivered by Tim Randall of The Advisory Board Company. Randall’s session explored the modern-day convergence of both public and private sector interests, highlighting the likely forces that will continue to shape health system strategy in the future. While judicial challenges, elections, and competing legislative proposals all impact the various roadmaps for reform implementation, Randall emphasized that all proposed solutions aim for the same objective: reining in skyrocketing healthcare costs. A key conclusion of The Advisory Board’s information was that regardless of the uncertainty surrounding reform efforts, larger trends in the industry will almost certainly require hospitals to develop accountable care strategies in the years ahead. A lively question and answer session followed. "Tim helped us gain perspective and clarity on today’s challenges" said Tom Hughes, SMI’s Executive Director. "With so many reform related activities underway, our members benefit by re-focusing on the common objective to manage costs."

The opening keynote was followed by the first of three small group interactions - the popular luncheon discussion rounds that feature spirited discussion and debate amongst SMI members about several pertinent topics, including reducing sales, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs; servicing the alternate care markets; and supply chain analytics. Facilitated by members of the SMI Board of Directors, these lively sessions offer a comfortable setting that encourages the assembled thought leaders to share their perspectives and opinions, fostering greater understanding among all supply chain participants of the challenges faced and the triumphs achieved by all supply chain stakeholders.

The Forum also featured working meetings of SMI’s Initiative Teams. Initiative Team meetings continued SMI member efforts on Industry Uniqueness, Technology Opportunities, Comparative Effectiveness, Integrated Care Models/ACOs, Data Standards Value Model, and Servicing the Alternate Care Market. The Data Standards Value Model Initiative featured a unique collaboration between SMI and the Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics (CIHL) at the University of Arkansas. CIHL‘s engineers had developed a decision support tool entitled LRIM to assist providers in forecasting the impact of standards implementation on their organization. During a six month period in 2011, four SMI members field-tested the LRIM Tool and advised the CIHL engineers on ways to improve the Tool’s user friendliness and reliability. The SMI Forum marked the culmination of that effort with CIHL’s Director Professor Ron Rardin revealing the new and improved LRIM Tool for the Initiative Team. CIHL is now making the LRIM Tool available for download at no charge from their website, http://cihl.uark.edu.

Day One of the SMI Forum also highlighted a revealing general session presentation by a team of supply chain leaders from the Cleveland Clinic who engaged the SMI members on transforming supply chain through physician integration. This session featured Bill Donato, Executive Director, Supply Chain Management; Carol Harding, Senior Director, Operations Support, and Sean Lyden, MD. This team shared their techniques and strategies through "real-life" examples and case studies of efforts where they successfully collaborated with physicians to manage supplies and remove significant costs while maintaining quality.

SMI members continued their Forum efforts on Day Two with the always popular SMI2U Breakout Sessions, where SMI members and industry thought-leaders share best practices and success stories while simultaneously engaging in open dialogue with the breakout attendees. Topics covered in these sessions included: Innovations In Removing Costs; Mergers and Acquisitions, A Supply Chain Playbook; and The Perfect Department Index. SMI Members were intrigued with the emerging concept of The Perfect Department Index (PDI), an evolution of SMI’s Perfect Order concept. Created by SMI Members Phil Pettigrew and Stewart Layhe of Denver Health, the Perfect Department Index merges "lean" strategies with Perfect Order to foster continuous improvement efforts with departments within a provider organization. Pettigrew explained, "The development of the index continues to evolve and may someday mature into a Perfect Hospital Index!"

The SMI Forum closed with an inspirational general session entitled "Disaster Preparedness In Action: The Joplin Story", which covered the incredible story of the May 2011 E5 multi-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, MO, and heavily damaged the St. John’s Regional Medical Center, part of the Sisters of Mercy Health System. Gene Kirtser and JoAnne Levy of ROi (the supply chain division of Mercy) joined Dottie Bringle, CEO of St. John’s, to share the incredible stories of heroism, bravery, and dedication that surrounded the effort to care for the people of Joplin in the aftermath of the tornado. Bringle delivered a powerful testimonial to the efforts of both the Mercy and ROi organizations to respond to this unprecedented disaster. As one SMI member commented in the Forum evaluation, "Powerful! Powerful! Powerful!"

Visit SMI at www.SMIsupplychain.com.