SPECIAL FOCUS
Clinical-Supply Chain connection a bridge worth crossing together
Two clinicians demonstrate supply chain’s value, respect and contributions by Rick Dana Barlow
or decades supply chain leaders and professionals have been advised, lectured, nudged and prodded about the need to work directly with clinicians – surgeons, physicians, doctors and nurses – as business, contractual and economic consultants and facilitators molding and shaping decisions based on clinical evidence, patient outcomes and anything else of clinical mindedness.
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They weren’t to dictate product selection based on costs and/or price alone but could work with clinicians on managing usage, minimizing wasteful practices and procedures and making sure the patients’ best interests are at the forefront – central tenets within value analysis.
Through the years, a small minority of healthcare organizations have incorporated this philosophy into their financial and operational modeling while the vast majority continue to inch their way toward what many believe will emerge as inevitable – the clinically integrated supply chain with all the rites, privileges, parameters and defi nitions therein. As Healthcare Purchasing News has recognized the emerging and growing participation by genuinely engaged clinicians in the supply chain process it decided to identify and salute those truly making a difference by presenting them with an award and profiling their points of view. U signifi es linicians Understanding, Respecting and Engaging Supply Chain professionals. HPN bestows its CURE award on those clinicians who have made solid contributions to supply chain operations – activities, practices and thinking. HPN designed the award, which also incorporates the PURE recognition given to 10 physicians between 2016 and 2019, to further solidify and strengthen the bonds between clinicians and supply chain professionals.
Supply-chain physicians that made the grade HPN’s 2021 Supply Chain-Focused clinicians are: Kimberly Amrami, M.D.,
Vice Chair, Department of Radiology, and edical Director, ffi ce of upply hain Management and Healthcare Technology Management, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; and Suzanne Smith, RN, Senior Solution Advisor for Value Analysis, Lumere, a GHX company, Chicago. In addition to an array of academic and clinical accomplishments and management excellence in radiology, Mayo Clinic’s Amrami serves as an accomplished, progressive advocate and thought leader for advancing, integrating and optimizing the physician leader’s role in the healthcare supply chain. Amrami routinely “collaborates at the local, regional and national levels to promote an integrated focus on quality, safety, cost and market considerations in the thoughtful stewardship of resources to ultimately impact the health of the patients and communities these provider organizations serve,” as written in her nomination.
One of Amrami’s latest projects involves
partnering with a group of physician supply chain executives from across Vizient’s Large IDN Supply Network (LISN) to establish a new national forum for clinical leaders of supply chain. The forum is designed to explore the challenges and opportunities for “physician supply chain leaders as resource stewards” in the delivery of safe, high-quality, cost-effective care. “LISN Supply Chain Physician Collaboration (SCPC) connects physician leaders in supply chain management to create a genuine and relevant open forum for engaging,” according to Amrami’s nomination. “The focus is on exploring the best models for the integration of supply chain and clinical care. By sharing leading practices, reexamining traditional processes and exploring innovations, this community of supply chain physician leaders aims to meaningfully impact the combined value and quality of care provided to our patients and communities. Through the LISN SCPC, Armani helps raise awareness of the unique opportunities for physician leaders to contribute in advancing the
10 July 2021 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS •
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clinical relevance – and effectiveness – of the healthcare supply chain.”
Lumere’s Smith dismisses the notion that any problem is too big to solve, choosing to tackle client challenges head-on rather than avoid or sidestep them. “Suzanne believes in meeting her clients where they are, seeking to understand their unique challenges and working closely with them to help achieve their aim of improving patient care while lowering the cost to deliver it,” according to her nomination.
This should come as no surprise because Smith has spent the bulk of her career working just like her clients do. She possesses more than three decades of experience as a registered nurse and 13 years as Director of Value Analysis at MaineHealth, all of which enabled her to gain insights into the clinical and supply chain worlds and where they intermingle. At MaineHealth Smith advocated for governance and built long-lasting, trusting relationships with clinicians and executive leaders united on lowering supply costs while maintaining clinical quality and achieving favorable patient outcomes. Back in the fall of 2018, Smith left MaineHealth and joined her husband on a year-long sabbatical in Alaska’s North Slope. But she turned the “respite” into a learning experience, recognizing an “urgent need for more public health professionals to serve Alaska’s indigenous population [because] they had just two nurses serving more than 9,000 residents.” With her healthcare and value analysis acumen, Smith quickly recognized and worked to solve the logistical challenges of getting medical supplies to the Arctic area. Smith’s experience motivated her to pursue elevating the strategic role of Supply Chain in healthcare – even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit a year later. She since has helped develop comprehensive value analysis processes and programs for several prominent healthcare systems and integrated delivery networks (IDNs) as well as a “COVID recovery” program for all Lumere clients to re-launch standard
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