SPECIAL FOCUS
ouma L recommends understanding your capa- bilities and being eible and nimble enough to pivot when necessary. Terrebonne General earned HPN’s inaugural Supply Chain Department of the ear award in . “ost of the five core elements listed are] acceptable strategies to have, and each hospital needs to decide what works best for them based on size and storage space” athers said. “ust-in-time and stockless distribution are risky because they [assumes] that the distributor is going to have enough products on hand to supply. Communication between distributor and hospital is vital. Managing the PAR levels to accommodate changing needs is in the responsibility of supply chain, and solely relying on computer algorithms can be dangerous if that’s all that‘s being factored into the equation.”
Kathleen Gathers
Maintaining balance
Rita White, Vice President, Supply Chain, Tower ealth est eading points to the “very delicate balance between ensuring sufficient “safety stock” of critical supplies to be used where and when needed on one hand and creating stock- piles to cover the “what- if” scenario at the risk of generating waste through
Rita White
unneeded expense and product expiration on the other. “ith the COD- pandemic man- agement of these critical supply inven- tories has become even more essential, as weve faced unprecedented supply disruptions for commodity supplies like hand sanitier and cleaning wipes and of course, personal protective equipment ” hite indicated. “nlike other disaster-related supply disruptions experi- enced in the past, health systems have had to compete against national governments, the business community, and personal consumers for these high-demand items.” Tower ealth earned HPN’s Supply
Chain Department of the ear award in .
hite acknowledged that throughout the pandemic, manufacturers have modi- fied eisting production lines to focus on high-run supplies.
“Though some have adapted more uickly than others maor manufacturers stand to gain by adopting a nimble and agile manufacturing approach, one that responds uickly to etreme demand
volatility, such as that experienced dur- ing the pandemic,” she said. “Addition- ally, identifying functionally equivalent products has become much more critical to ensuring the steady ow of supplies. Manufacturers historically have been somewhat guarded in identifying func- tionally equivalent products produced by competitors, but greater transparency in the future will help to ensure uick informed decision making should health- care continue to be faced with shortages. “Likewise the role of category manage-
ment will play an even greater role in an adaptive healthcare Supply Chain strategy to facilitate easier identification of sourc- ing opportunities and support inventory management of product alternatives and substitutes,” White continued. “Existing vendor relationships may need to adjust, allowing for secondary relationships across a greater number of vendors/ manufacturers.”
Clear channels ittsburgh-based C which earned HPN’s Supply Chain Department of the ear award in embraces all five of these elements according to im Szilagy, Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer but more is needed. “e feel keeping an open line of communica- tion with key critical-to- operations suppliers is the most important element in times of product crisis,” Szilagy urged. “Creating strategic business relationships with suppliers provides us the ability to align variable operational needs with production capacity. aving multi-sourcing relationships across com- modity categories is also an important strategy as it enables the system to move uickly to activate secondary supplier relationships and secure additional critical inventory and capacity.”
Jim Szilagy Teresa Dail, R.N., CMRP, Chief Sup-
ply Chain Officer anderbilt niversity Medical Center, Nashville, TN, agrees that open channels with suppliers regulatory officials and clinicians are paramount. “Demand transparency from the vendors into the origin of product or raw materials to better understand the risk associ- ated with purchasing as it relates to ability to procure in a situation like COD where other countries can essentially shut off the supply to the United States, Dail said. “ork with liaisons to the state
Teresa Dail 12 September 2020 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS •
hpnonline.com
and federal government to open up the dialogue around how to incent manufac- turers to look at production in the .S. or at the minimum the continent. ork with clinical colleagues to establish an alternative, clinically acceptable product pipeline that can be utilized in the event traditional, and recommended, products cannot be procured. or eample if s are no longer available what is the net level of protection that would be utilied” Dail also encourages establishing and maintaining an internal emergency stock- pile to reduce reliance on state or federal assistance. “Think broader than a viral pandemic as
work is done to shore up the supply chain within the .S.” she noted. “eaning what supplies would be necessary in the event we had another type of catastrophic event that may have a global or continental impact
anderbilt earned s Supply Chain Department of the ear award in . Anticipate demand Dartmouth-itchcock ealth Lebanon
urges supply chain leaders and pro- fessionals to pursue demand-planning capabilities and skills particularly during the prospect of a crisis or disaster like a pandemic, according to Curtis Lancaster, Vice President, Supply Chain Division, Dartmouth-itchcock ealth. fter all thats where theyve done and continue to do. “Enhance Demand Planning so that
we incorporate surge planning based on needs driven by emergent events like the pandemic,” Lancaster indicated. “We are getting better at this and incorporate recovery – or normal times – emergency planning models.” Lancaster acknowledges that supplier communications and ualifications mat- ter, too.
“Evaluate supplier relationships based
on manufacturing locations and even raw material sources” he advised. “This will help us monitor disruptions for global events like the pandemic but also singu- lar disruptions like work stoppages and political unrest.” Dartmouth-itchcock also epanded
capacity to receive more bulk deliveries by acuiring additional warehouse space and redesigned its logistics model to incorpo- rate the new space into overall operations according to Lancaster. “While managed care drives us to reduce
costs it also makes us mindful that being effective saves money, too,” he added. “That is we need to enhance invest in our capabilities in order to be more resourceful in the long-term.” HPN
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