Non-acute connections to acute care?

What can acute care or hospital-based Supply Chain executives and professionals learn from non-acute care sourcing? Eight experts shared their insights.

Howard Mann, Vice President, Supply Chain Management, Cardiovascular Care Group, Nashville, TN

“Non-acute care requires the hospital supply chain leader and staff to broaden their perspective on what the non-acute experience is. While it is easy to assume that hospital purchasing and supply chain management has more resources and access to information that can benefit the non-acute market, one also has to learn to appreciate the non-acute organization’s attention to the patient experience, the efficiencies in a close environment, and the strong connections with physicians, pharmacists and clinicians that the non-acute environment provides. Learning how to apply hospital processes in a non-acute environment isn’t a blanket approach. Some things will work well and some will need to be tailored to the non-acute setting. Communication and mutual learning is key.”

William Stitt, CMRP, FAHRMM, Principal and Chief Operating Officer, Credibility Healthcare, LLC

“Non-acute care services account for a large portion of spend in an organization and will continue to do so as healthcare positions itself for the changes that come with healthcare reform. Supply Chain should own the procurement and logistics functions within an organization and especially those that occur outside the hospital walls. We must learn to make ourselves visible, learn how the non-acute care side works, their challenges, etc., then provide the requisite [and appropriate] solutions from our experience that allow them to focus on patient care and allow us to do what we do best. It is a fairly simply solution, but we have allowed the non-acute care side to fend for themselves for too long, and it shouldn’t be that way. Another lesson is to sell yourself and your operation, and most importantly, the expertise of your staff related to their sourcing and logistics activities. We have the answers. It is about putting it into action.”

Allen Archer, CMRP, Director, System Supply Chain Management, Houston Healthcare, Warner Robins, GA

“I believe that the non-acute sourcing can teach the hospital sourcing team the importance of staying close to your internal customer to truly understand their needs and their mission. The non-acute space can be highly specialized, and it is important that the Supply Chain profession seeks first to understand the need and then determines how to manage processes to meet the need.  Getting out of the office and into the clinic to understand how your process affects your end user is critical. Ultimately, this process of empathy will help guide your approach at the acute level as well.

“We as Supply Chain professionals often complain that the vendor representatives have better relationships with our physicians and that they leverage those relationships to drive technology adoption and thus sales. How much time do we spend reaching out to our partners? I truly believe that we can learn from our suppliers and begin to build relationships to drive alignment to facility goals.”

Eric Tritch, Executive Director, Strategic Sourcing, University of Chicago Medicine

“Standardization and inventory control is a must in non-acute settings because space is at such a premium. There are not large supply storage locations that allow you to order in bulk or have multiple versions of a similar supply. If we can make this work in non-acute settings you can make it work in acute settings as well. These space decisions can help drive a discussion away from preferences and back to clinical necessity.”

will be use of a common technology platform and user interface to enable formulary-driven procurement across the enterprise for all non-labor spend. And technology adoption will be dependent upon how easy the technology is to use for non-supply chain professionals.”

Darrel Weatherford, Vice President, Advantage Trust

“Out of necessity, the non-acute sourcing and distribution model has been forced to innovate and drive efficiencies toward both a lower cost product formulary as well as a distribution model that is better suited to serve a vast number of small facilities. For example, one national distributor ships virtually all its product from a small number of distribution centers. This lowers the cost of delivery and increases the deliverable fill rates to the customers.”

Chris Luoma, Vice President, Global Product, GHX, Louisville, CO

“Many of the best practices deployed in the acute care setting around process automation, discrepancy reduction, data standards adoption, product standardization, price alignment and contract compliance and utilization are just as applicable in the non-acute setting. The key will be use of a common technology platform and user interface to enable formulary-driven procurement across the enterprise for all non-labor spend. And technology adoption will be dependent upon how easy the technology is to use for non-supply chain professionals.”

Randy Piper, Vice President, Non-Acute Contracting Solutions, Intalere

“Acute care supply-chain has evolved over the past several years, and has become adept for the most part in developing strategic relationships with large suppliers and distributors. By working through the challenges of non-acute sourcing and supply chain, the one-size fits all solutions — appropriate in the acute care setting — are severely tested in the non-acute setting where more flexibility is needed. This allows for creative thinking in terms of collaborative strategies that utilize the best tools of the GPO, the suppliers and the distribution partners. This collaboration results in better solutions which impact a fragmented yet growing part of the overall healthcare supply chain.”

Tim Bugg, CMRP, President & CEO, Capstone Health Alliance, Asheville, NC

“I believe there is opportunity for acute and non-acute to learn from each other. The key is to figure out how to bring the complete supply chain continuum together to reduce variation and increase standardization that ultimately should improve patient care and satisfaction.”