Back Talk

3 secrets to supply chain success unlocked
by Lynn James Everard, C.P.M.

Much of the job of the director of materials management revolves around getting others to do things they would otherwise not want to do. What director can claim to be successful without being effective at product standardization and contract compliance? And how likely is it that your clinical customers are going to support your efforts if they do not trust you or respect you? If you are being honest with yourself you know it is not very likely. Trust and respect cannot be demanded, they must be earned. And they are not earned through one time events or meetings but over a long period of time encompassing hundreds or thousands of smaller daily occurrences.

Success Secret No. 1: If you are not meeting the needs of your customers on a daily basis it will be impossible for them to trust and respect you. Period. Ask yourself these questions. Do my clinicians have what they need when they need it? Are my par levels accurate? Are unit supply replenishments timely? How would my clinical customers rate my service?

If you are not getting the support you need from your customers it is time to take a hard look at whether you are meeting their needs. Your success begins there.

Success Secret No. 2: Supply chain success within a hospital requires meeting the needs of and surpassing the expectations of three distinct groups of people. The first group we talked about is your customers. Another group is senior management. If you are a director of materials management there is a high probability that your boss is a member of your hospital’s senior management team. In the same way that you must win the trust and respect of your clinical customers you must win the confidence and respect not just of your boss but of your entire senior management team.

To accomplish that goal you must increase your visibility (not easy if you prefer obscurity, but obscurity does not buy safety; it just prolongs the inevitable), become a risk taker (start small at first) and gain some crossover competence in their areas of expertise (study up on the things that keep them up at night). Doing the last item will pay lasting benefits as you use your new knowledge to build links between your department’s capabilities and the big issues that command their attention.

Your success will require creativity. Here is but one example. Many years ago I joined a publicly traded healthcare provider. At the end of my first year I prepared a cost savings report for senior management and in the report I converted the cost savings I had achieved into earnings per share. Needless to say, I got senior management’s attention and became a trusted advisor to them. You can do the same thing.

Success Secret No. 3: Becoming a trusted advisor to senior management and your clinical customers will be one of the hardest things you have ever loved to do. It will take hard work and a plan. That plan consists of several steps, each of which must be executed. There are no short cuts.

Step One: Decide if you want it 
For most hospitals finances are only going to get worse as cuts in reimbursement from all sides are accompanied by a steep rise in the numbers of Medicare and Medicaid patients. Most hospitals don’t have the luxury of carrying positions that are defensive in nature only. Very soon, if you have not been already, you will be asked to attack the market instead of just trying to protect your hospital’s cost position. If you have spent most of your career on defense it will be a difficult transition.

Step Two: Ruthlessly pursue knowledge
Advisors give advice and the ability to give advice comes from gaining more knowledge about your area of expertise than anyone else in your hospital. It requires reading, researching and studying. If your CEO or CFO is reading a book about the business of healthcare you need to be reading it, too. If at any point, they think they know more about your area of expertise than you do, you cannot be their trusted advisor. 

Step Three: Dream fearlessly
By now you know if you are a leader or a follower. If you are a follower this won’t help you much. Success is really all about ideas. Good ideas well-implemented become best practices and catapult your organization forward. Every hospital CEO wants his hospital to be the best. If you can learn and are willing to dream fearlessly you have the ability to create the next big breakthrough in your area of expertise.

Step Four: Boldly try new things
The old saying, "nothing ventured, nothing gained" still rings true today. If you try and fail senior management will recognize your effort. If you don’t try new things at all, you simply validate their lack of trust in you.

Step Five: Humbly report your successes  
If you did something good and have effectively presented the results there is no need to brag. Your humility will show that you are accustomed to success. I did not say not to report your successes; just to do it with humility. HPN

Lynn James Everard, C.P.M., is a healthcare supply chain strategist and consultant who publishes a free e-mail newsletter on Fridays called "Hospital Supply Chain Tip of the Week." For more information or to make topic suggestions, contact Everard at leverard@bellsouth.net.

October
2005