Supply chain’s role in pharmacy – twain meeting?

When two persons perform the same or similar functions in two different areas or departments, process efficiency experts recruited by hospital administration logically call for standardization and perhaps a merger. For many healthcare organizations, pharmacy and supply chain operations largely claim exception and immunity to the suggestion.

Bariatric care belts loosen as fiscal belts tighten

Three-quarters of all U.S. states are now saddled with obesity rates above 25 percent, and experts predict that figure may nearly double before the decade ends. Clinicians may be loosening their caregiving belts to accommodate this patient population as healthcare financial operations tighten theirs.

Bariatric Product Vendor Chart

Antibiotic resistance: When drugs turn deadly

Antibiotic-resistant infection remain three words that can strike fear in the hearts of clinicians and patients alike. But the fight against it needs to begin long before it emerges in the patient’s body.

Smart phone, tablet PC apps giving supply chain cloud cover?

Certainly in healthcare, smart phones and tablet PCs represent the latest efficiency craze for clinicians to handle such tasks as scheduling, medical records, orders and prescriptions, diagnostic imaging (but not for actual diagnoses, mind you) and even patient vital signs, among others. Yet within the healthcare supply chain the use of function-specific apps remains spotty at best.

HIMSS Vendor Spotlights

Newsmaker
Reducing unscheduled equipment downtime in CPD and OR
by Ross W. Simon and John H. Dzialo

Standard Practices
Insights from the FDA UDI conference
by Karen Conway

Back Talk
How to prioritize savings ideas quickly
Value analysis pyramid can speed up, optimize savings efforts
by Robert T. Yokl