SPECIAL FOCUS
When hallowed heroes pull from
halls of hollowed shelves Healthcare supply chain yearns for serious shelf help by Rick Dana Barlow
mid all the debate and discourse about how exponentially increas- ing pandemic-motivated product demand siphoned supply chains as health- care clinicians treated COVID-19 patients, one lingering conceptual question looms large.
A
If we can’t handle this, what happens when something twice as bad erupts on society? Sobering thought. Take a swig of coffee or
tea knowing that top- ight Supply Chain leaders and professionals neither are pan- icking nor waving the white ag. In fact, when it comes to maintaining and buttressing inventory levels, tracking what you store where and when it’s used and then predicting what’s needed to satisfy demand, award-winning Supply Chain leaders and pros are plowing full speed ahead. Controlling and reducing costs remains one of the hallmarks of managed care, and Supply Chain’s contribution to that strategy, by and large involves fi ve core elements: • Manage/oversee consumption/usage patterns of products and services
• Store less in smaller areas (versus storing way more in larger warehouses)
• Have products delivered in lower units of measure more frequently (e.g., just- in-time, stockless, modified stockless distribution)
• Keep online, open-ended communica- tions with suppliers eible and uid so that when something happens, Supply Chain can pick up the Batphone and tap into the vast array of emergency stock the suppliers miraculously store in their big warehouses (akin to cost shifting, this is storage shifting)
• Rely on computer software algorithms to predict what happens to demand when a crisis or disaster hits
When a crisis or disaster strikes – like an
ongoing pandemic these fi ve core ele- ments may bend but they’re not expected – nor accepted – to break.
As COVID-19 has maintained a fairly
tight viral grip on the global community, it also has destabilized and disrupted human health, lifestyle choices and business opera- tions, including the general and specialized supply chains.
In recognition of the pandemic-punctured healthcare supply chain, Healthcare Purchas- ing News reached out to all 17 of those orga- nizations that have earned Supply Chain Department of the Year honors since 2004. After all, who but those on award-winning teams may have some actionable, tangible and useful ideas on how to parry with and outpace the spread of spiking demand for products during the roller-coaster ride of a pandemic?
Comprehensive convergence Being prepared represents more than just a passing mindset or a panic program button to punch at a moment’s notice, setting into motion a series of decisions and events. For Danville, PA-based Geisinger Health, which earned HPN’s Supply Chain Depart- ment of the Year award in 2008, planning for potential supply disruption and crisis response has been ongoing for years. In fact, it’s ingrained in the infrastructure. “We have had weather-related disrup- tions that challenged us to be prepared, but certainly not to the extent that COVID-19
10 September 2020 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS •
hpnonline.com
presented,” said Joe Goyne, Senior Director, Logistics, Supply Chain Services, Geisinger, Wilkes-Barre, PA. “We have been fortu- nate to have invested in many foundational Supply Chain strategies to prepare
Joe Goyne
us for this challenging situation, such as the establishment of a large central distribu- tion center, an integrated logistics delivery network, an experienced team of Supply Chain experts managing inventories at our hospitals, etc. Providing inventory oversight to our acute care locations is something the Geisinger Supply Chain team has done for decades, and it is a strategy for us to con- tinue to expand this value to the organiza- tion in the future.” Goyne admits to one exception to their
rule: supporting the non-acute clinic net- work. “We have traditionally serviced these locations directly through a distributor, but have recognized this service model as a potential area for re-assessment,” he added. Because Geisinger’s Supply Chain dis- tribution model heavily depends on “allo- cations,” “we recognized early in the crisis response that we needed to use the experience and strength of the centralized Supply Chain team to manage the end-to- end supply chain for everyone,” Goyne said. “We worked with our distributor, consolidated all allocations and drove dis- tribution through our centralized logistics and materials (CLAM) self-distribution center. We needed to quickly integrate and optimize the processes taking place within the mini-warehouses that were beginning to
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62
