There’s a fine line between alternative facts and real ones. As we pass through April 1, read these headline blurbs and decide.
1. Springing from the trendy “The Internet of Things,” one Supply Chain manager starts a basement cult centered on “The Purchasing of Things.” Suppliers around the country rejoice and fill the offering plate at each weekly worship service.
2. Clever purchasing director discovers that the CFO’s golf clubs can effectively work the kinks out of contract price matching with the GPO database if he whacks his own MMIS hard enough with a nine iron.
3. One hospital increases Supply Chain staff efficiency by making employees wear Foley catheters and leg bags in lieu of bathroom breaks. Savings generated from the workflow (and waste flow) improvements more than offset the costs of Foleys and bags purchased. Infection preventionists launch immediate protest.
4. After a cost-conscious hospital bans purchasing of EpiPens, an industrious infection preventionist develops a new way to deliver epinephrine through Nerf blasters you can buy in the dollar bins at your local pharmacy outlet.
5. Hospital value analysis manager is praised for improving clinical and purchasing process collaboration based on recommendations learned from the Dr. Oz television show.
6. In a new twist on the “wearables” fad, one company develops a special skin-tight “A.I.” suit that allows staffers to work 24 hours a day. Sterile Processing leaders express concern that the suits must be certified to function properly during that overnight 3rd shift.
7. In the latest effort to boost interest in supply data standards for healthcare products, GS1 Healthcare decides to incorporate the use of emojis in GTINs. Guess what the smiling turd represents?
8. To improve communications with Supply Chain, critical care nurses are flocking to the “Materials Management Magic Wand.” This insanely popular product is nothing more than a multicolored squeaky clown hammer that comes with easy-to-read instructions: An arrow pointing to a silhouetted forehead with the words, “Aim here.”
9. Sterile Processing tech finds a creative use for older model sterilization containers as effective storage bins for staff sack lunches and for flashing frozen dinners.
10. New Louisiana university study finds that the best time for a New Orleans hospital to run low on supplies is between 3 a.m. on Fat Tuesday and 3 a.m. on Ash Wednesday.
11. Feeling threatened by growing interest in two-bin Kanban systems, the makers of automated supply cabinets up the ante by equipping each of their models with a built-in Keurig machine.
12. Automated Press Ganey sensors for immediate-access patient satisfaction scores represent the latest premium option for bar-code scanners, RFID scanners, and RTLS.
13. Cronuts become the newest incentive of choice given to doctors by the savviest and most sophisticated of product sales representatives.
14. Repless “advisory” team caught watching Netflix and Hulu on their iPads during virtual surgical “consultations.”
15. A band of Luddite logisticians are developing Meaningful Use guidelines for clipboards, pens and sticky notes.
16. To promote adoption and implementation of electronic health records, former band members of ELO reunite and go on a national tour as EMR. They re-release “Don’t Bring Me Down,” with an emphasis on paper-based patient records and payer reimbursement.
17. Disappointed Supply Chain pros regret learning that 340B is not part of their compensation package. Nor are employee discounts for private-label products.
18. To boost interest and participation in UDI implementation, the FDA borrows from the Lean Six Sigma philosophy and blends it with the martial arts colored-belt ranking system, granting gilded Black Belts to the heaviest users. In a seemingly unrelated development, retail outlets around the nation experience a run on black spray paint.
19. When just-in-time distribution slips and stockouts prevent just-in-case hoarding, empathetic Supply Chain departments employ the just-in-bieber method, singing “Sorry,” a capella.
20. What did Supply Chain pros give up for Lent? Top five sacrifices include stockouts, user-defined fields, Report Writer, patient charges and HPN. Wait, what? Sorry. Typo. They mean HPN’s SKU’d column.
Rick Dana Barlow | Senior Editor
Rick Dana Barlow is Senior Editor for Healthcare Purchasing News, an Endeavor Business Media publication. He can be reached at [email protected].
