But achieving it in a positive, productive and respectful way.
By R. Dana Barlow
The White House’s controversial consulting boutique may be generating a lot of blustery headlines and noise of late – maybe not in that particular order – but the chutzpah should motivate the entrepreneurial imagineering within healthcare supply chain about how such a concept could work in provider organizations (minus the punitive pugnacity).
Let’s be honest upfront. Supply chain, more so than the automotive and banking industries, is too big and essential to fail. How? Well, the automotive and banking industries certainly need supply chain to function – including conceptual ideation, designing, production and transportation.
Hospitals and other healthcare organizations are no exception to that rule.
Imagine what would happen if supply chain, resource management, materials management, purchasing or cooperative buying (hearkening back to the halcyon days) didn’t exist? How would healthcare operate “efficiently” during all those decades before Congress made managed care the law of the land in 1983 and shifted fiscal control of an entire industry that now represents about a quarter of the GDP to payers?
The forerunners of today’s contemporary supply chain operations were there to control as many costs and expenses as possible. Granted, back in the day, purchasing served, by and large, as a dumping ground for corporate, family and political patronage appointments, but that was by no means all-consuming and comprehensive. Enough threads of ingenuity and professionalism were woven throughout population pockets that enterprisingly savvy pioneers, leaders and executives emerged and pushed forward.
What many conveniently forget is that as the forerunners of modern healthcare supply chain excellence developed and grew in expertise, influence, knowledge and prestige, the industry around them expanded exponentially like waves in a pond once the pebble hits the water. The more efficient supply chain became, the broader and deeper the challenges they faced around them.
Without supply chain’s contributions, efforts and expertise, how would products, equipment and services be in place for clinicians and administrators to use to treat patients and preserve population health?
Certainly, hospitals and other healthcare facilities would not be empty husks of real estate, devoid of the necessary analog and digital clutter we see today. That means someone would have to bring all of that material in somehow. Who would that be? Administrators? Clerks? Clinicians? Volunteers? All of them?
Without any education, mentoring, training or even common sense, how would these individuals know what to acquire for what price in acceptable or adequate quantity and during what time frames where?
Clinicians are specialists in their respective fields. Doctors, nurses, surgeons and technologists endure considerable education and training to focus on their singular mission – providing care for organic beings that don’t respond like inorganic products on an assembly line. Each patient reacts uniquely to whatever diagnosis and prescription such that clinicians continually must pivot in everything they do. Why does this matter?
Clinicians simply don’t have the time to devote to anything outside of their core mission – or at least they don’t want to sacrifice that time with their patients.
The products, equipment and services they need simply must be there ready to go.
Without supply chain expertise, they likely would not have the discipline nor the understanding on how to source, negotiate and contract for what they needed to carry out their mission so they likely would overpay, acquire too much, driving up costs and expenses to the point of fiscal crisis.
Thankfully, supply chain is, has been and will be there to help not only clinicians to fulfill their missions but also to enable the institutions within which they work to remain open and operate as efficiently as possible.
Fun with acronyms
On paper at least, the federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was conceived and designed to uncover and root out fiscal and operational corruption, malfeasance, mismanagement, negligence, politico-social engineering and waste or any outcomes a “Department of Redundancy Department” might develop. Media reports and public perceptions give DOGE antics mixed reviews.
Arguably, the theory and baseline intentions behind DOGE may have been admirable even though its output remains controversial, but a dedicated team of “efficiency-minded” professionals has assisted, operated and worked within healthcare organizations for decades. With proper motivation, training and respect, supply chain can continue for decades to come.
Depending on how you slice and dice the numbers, supply chain oversees the largest expense stream in a healthcare organization, specifically if you include outsourced labor as a purchased service, removed from labor’s bucket of managing staff with benefits. For the larger urban organizations at least that maintain expansive reaches to suburbs, exurbs and rural areas, supply chain logically should edge out labor by a nose.
And this is just the beginning.
As recorded, reported and explored in trade media outlets and professional association conferences and media, supply chain isn’t just acquiring stuff for clinicians and administrators anymore. Look at all the categorical functions and responsibilities linked to supply chain today.
The expanse can include asset management, equipment planning, environmental services, facilities management, hospitality, mailroom, print shop, project management, real estate (including groundskeeping and landscaping!) and value analysis with tentacles extended to information systems/technology among others.
To borrow phrasing from those old Oldsmobile television commercials: This is not your father’s supply chain.
This concept, this function, this service deserves a boost, a level-up both earned and deserved.
The acronym for the Department of Supply Efficiency (DOSE) may ruffle feathers in pharmacy even though “supply” refers to the act of supplying and not the products themselves.
Similarly, the acronym for the Department of Healthcare Commerce (DOHC) may cause confusion in online searches by car buffs looking for details on dual overhead cam engines.
Perhaps the Department of Commerce Services (DOCS) satisfies as the acronym and points to a key customer base. The term “commerce” makes sense by mere definition – the exchange of goods and services between two or more entities. The term “commercial” merely represents the activities of commerce. Shared and/or support services may be too compartmentalized and marginalized for this department’s contributions to the top and bottom lines.
Overseen by a Chief Commerce Officer, DOCS can provide business consulting, facilitation and fulfillment to administrative and clinical operations. This spans expense management and revenue generation, helping the organization control costs through traditional supply chain activities and assist in conceiving, designing and planning for clinical service expansions by location, market segment and specialty.
Rest assured, DOCS and its commerce team wouldn’t be telling clinicians how to practice medicine; instead, they would listen to what the clinicians want to achieve – the endgame, if you will – and then work with them to reach their desired outcome as efficiently and quality-driven as possible. Patient care may be classified as a service, but it also can represent an organic product molded and shaped by educated and informed collaborative decisions, intuition and relationships.
Imagine this forecasting the future of today’s healthcare supply chain … and then connect the dots.
R. Dana Barlow serves as a senior writer and columnist for The Journal of Healthcare Contracting. Barlow has nearly four decades of journalistic experience and has covered healthcare supply chain issues for more than 30 years. He can be reached at rickdanabarlow@wingfootmedia.biz.
Designing a DOGE for healthcare provider organizations – The Journal of Healthcare Contracting