Amidst the current situation in our county and around the globe, supply chain logistics is a hot topic, especially in healthcare. How many news stories and press conferences have you seen or heard about medical staff on the front lines not having enough or the adequate PPE’s available? I am guessing, quite a few.
On the blog today, we have Justin Bell, CEO and President of Credera located in Dallas. Justin shares some basic thoughts around supply chain optimization and around the work they have done in the healthcare space.
Our Conversation with Justin
AMP: A recent survey revealed that 98% of hospital leaders said supply chain optimization ups margins. Having done work in this space, what are you and your team seeing as it relates to margins?
Justin: Consolidating purchasing within a facility and a system and purchasing through a GPO helps the economy of scale and joint purchasing power to negotiate better pricing through commitments to minimum purchase volumes allowing lower costs on supplies and services which they would purchase anyway and contributes to better margins directly through lower costs with fairly limited upfront costs to implement. We found significant opportunities to save money through price benchmarking, group purchasing and sometimes shifting utilization to functionally equivalent products with similar or better clinical results.
AMP: If a healthcare organization is ready to evaluate new supply chain processes, this can be a daunting task; where should they start?
Justin: Where possible look to coordinate and contract purchasing through a GPO rather than looking to contract directly themselves with their multiple manufacturers. This doesn’t change the actual supply chain acquisition process but rather directly impacts the costs of acquiring those supplies.
AMP: Beyond increasing margins and a healthier balance sheet, what positive effects have you seen come out optimizing the supply chain for your healthcare clients?
Justin: When you have true visibility into the supply chain, a range of options and especially if you can include clinical data and evidence-based data with your supply chain then can greatly improve patient outcomes, improving patient lives and saving money.
AMP: Being that CFO’s control the budget, how can healthcare leaders show a great return on Supply Chain investment to their CFO?
Justin: The biggest win (or miss for many others) we’ve seen was in actually providing the HCOs the ability to track their savings. When this isn’t provided, much of the anticipated or theoretical savings never get realized. This is often because of a failure to actually shift utilization since that is often controlled by the individual doctors. Or, just because purchasing and negotiating is distributed. By providing a project management like tool with benefits tracking you get better accountability and can actually get to results.
Justin Bell
Justin is the CEO & President of Credera, a management and technology consulting firm that helps clients with digital transformation and innovation. Justin has management and technology consulting experience focused primarily within the digital, retail, entertainment, hospitality, and transportation industries. He has served clients in areas that include digital strategy, custom application development, Agile software coaching, software selections, IT Strategy, IT Effectiveness, and packaged software implementations.
