Supply Chain should apply DUE process to products, technology

In the search for continuous process improvement the role of Supply Chain needs to take on the role of providing product information in support of clinical decision-making, something our counterparts in pharmacy have done for years. With the long-term success of a process like DUE, which is owned and supported by clinicians, it is Supply Chain’s evolving role to become a trusted advisor of the necessary data and information to help clinicians make informed decisions regarding the cost and utilization of the products and services they require. The appropriate indication, selection and type of treatment occupy the role of the clinician, but the access to information regarding the value (not only the cost of a good or service) should occupy the role of effective Supply Chain partners.

A key to success as a trusted partner is the ability to provide information about the total cost of care at the procedural level and how that cost compares to others. The variations that are identified, in fact-based data, speak for themselves. These insights to the clinicians actual cost per case compared to that of their peers becomes actionable and will naturally evolve in to the very process that pharmacy has driven for decades — use evaluation.

Tap pharmacy expertise

How might an organization begin the integration of supply chain in to a clinical process like DUE? One might first start with the pharmacy. Meet with and begin to understand how your colleagues in pharmacy work with clinicians to provide actionable data to make informed decisions. Learn how your pharmacy uses a DUE process, formally or informally all hospitals have some sort of a Pharmacy and Therapeutics committee (P&T). Ask to sit in on a meeting. Understand how the physician chair has information typically provided by the pharmacist to conduct the meeting. The agenda is clinically focused and the clinicians discuss the standardization of drugs, their appropriate application and the overall outcomes as well as costs in the effective utilization of therapies. Review the policies and procedures of the P&T committee. Think about effective adaptation as to what you do in supply chain.

Supply Chain asking physicians to convert to different products to save money no longer is enough to achieve the cost reduction goals necessary to sustain the economics of an organization. Supply Chain must become a part of the ongoing quality and outcomes that clinicians have focused on for years and find new and creative ways to become a trusted provider of data that represent the information necessary for clinicians to understand the cost variability to drive change.

Supply care paths

Every physician is interested in their cost per procedure; we simply have not given them the information necessary to become informed consumers of products and services. Think of your role in providing the necessary information to help clinicians in your organization achieve supply care paths. Adapt the valuable and proven objectives of a DUE process to your role in supply chain and cost management. As a consumer, what do you need or want to make an informed decision regarding the consumption of goods and services? Provide the same information to clinicians. They are interested and they do care — they just do not know the variations in the costs of the products that they utilize. We are all apprentices; we repeat what we are taught. That does not mean that a clinician or an informed consumer will not change their practice given information they understand and are willing to apply.

Acquiring the data necessary to inform clinicians is not easy. Cost-by-clinician-by-case often requires reviewing data from several systems. Again, ask the pharmacy how they get their information. Partner with other departments to share the burden of transforming data into useful information. Working with other stakeholders in your organization through committees or processes that already exist transforms your role in Supply Chain to that of a trusted advisor of cost information to make better informed decisions. Supply Chain’s evolving role is that of an informed provider of information that becomes valuable to clinicians as they search and strive for the highest quality and outcomes at the lowest cost.