At Advantus Health Partners, we’re passionate about helping health systems reduce their supply chain spend. On a recent episode of PSQH: The Podcast, Jimmy Chung, M.D., chief medical officer of Advantus Health Partners, shares lessons learned from 2022 and areas of opportunity for health systems.
Shortages are still expected to occur, and some health systems may experience more waste due to stockpiling of PPE from the pandemic that may be expiring soon. Before the pandemic, the supply chain industry became lean by adopting just-in-time principles. The pendulum is now swinging more toward just-in-case or just enough. There is also more interest in onshoring vs. offshoring.
As we enter quarter two, we’ve taken this information and applied it to helping health systems identify savings in supply chain.
One way to reduce your supply chain spend is by focusing on data standardization and clinical metrics, two areas that are becoming more important for supply chain. “Data standardization is a way we can keep track of products more closely. Clinicians can have a better sense of the supply chain issue we’re currently facing, and how we can best provide care for our patients,” shares Dr. Chung. “It allows us to be very focused on patient safety, care, and outcomes, some of the clinician metrics that are becoming more important to supply chain organizations.”
For better or for worse, the health care supply chain reacted to the pandemic exactly as it was designed to operate. It may be time to redesign. “The supply chain responded to the pandemic by revealing the holes in clinical integration of supply chain, creating potential patient safety issues. This gave us an opportunity and insight into how to better design a supply chain so that it withstands something like this in the future,” shares Dr. Chung.
