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said. “Equally as important, health systems must work with vendor partners that make data security a top priority, going above and beyond all standards to protect vulner- able PHI [protected health information] that travels through their systems.”
McBride calls distribution strategies that involve multi-sourcing and safety stock access as a response to the product shortages experienced during the pandemic as vital. “Automated inventory management technol- ogy is critical to the successful execution of this strategy,” he insisted. “Automation tracks that inventory and provides insights to its most effective use, enabling staff to reallocate products where needed most, which is critical for hospitals, especially during COVID-19 surges when products need to be strategically utilized to ensure the health and longevity of inventory levels. In addition, this automation helps identify any expired or recalled product and keeps it away from patients, supporting critical patient safety initiatives.” Solid data infrastructure buttresses these three areas, McBride emphasizes. “It is critical to have clean and reliable data, adhering to global standards, to drive actionable insights and improve supply chain effectiveness,” McBride said. “Given multiple and disparate systems and the speed of expansion at many institutions, data sets have not been maintained and the capture and curation of data is ineffective. Ensuring all products are tracked using a consistent, globally adopted standard (like GS1), sup- ports that enterprise visibility to inventory throughout the health system.” Workflow optimization and automation remains key, too, he adds. “Many health sys- tems still manually track product inventory at the point-of care, which leads to errors and missed revenue capture and lack of insights that drive improvement,” he added. “The right automated technology helps ensure clinicians have the products they need – when they need them – without stocking unnecessary inventory. This means millions in potential savings for hospitals and great satisfaction with employees.”
Crossroad continuum The sheer volume of pandemic-related sup- ply disruptions has led providers and suppliers alike to explore “practical, new supplier resiliency solutions,” according to David Gillan, Senior Vice President, Supply Chain,
“Blockchain could take this to the next
level, providing more accurate data and visibility throughout the supply chain,” he predicted.
But if greater transparency for increased resiliency remains the top pursuit, supply redundancy clocks in at a close second, Gillan insists.
“Healthcare organizations are looking for ways to still drive standardization in key supply areas for cost optimization without eliminating options for allocation from alternative suppliers,” he said. “Creating and maintaining safety stock of certain equipment and supplies for use by an individual organi- zation is also being evaluated. Nearly every hospital organization that we have surveyed has indicated a significant shift towards the creation of their own stockpile of essential products. This shift comes with a lot of chal- lenges, including cost, distribution, local storage sites and ongoing management.” St. Onge’s Redding contends that health- care remains at a “critical juncture” where demand management and predictive ana- lytics should be implemented to assure the entire supply chain continuum works more effectively and seamlessly.
“We continually speak with supply chain leaders about their vision for the future, and demand management is always one of the top items,” Redding noted. “With the goal of achieving success in demand management, it starts with building the digital infrastruc- ture – bar-code scanning, voice-activated capture, vision capture, etc. Health systems will need to take the important step of evalu- ating their digital supply chain strategy to ensure they are prepared to meet the ever- changing needs of patient-centered care. If they don’t, they will continue to struggle to capture the appropriate information to prop- erly predict demand. To become more predic- tive, supply chain systems will need to establish the product usage relationship for clinical commonality, preference and patient uniqueness to truly predict product demand.” Cory Turner, CMRP, Senior Director, Healthcare Strategy, Tecsys Inc., and a former supply chain executive within Greenville (SC) Healthcare System, HPN’s 2013 Supply Chain Department of the Year, agrees that demand plan- ning and predictive analyt- ics will drive technologies on the cusp of widespread adoption.
Cory Turner David Gillan
Vizient. Such solutions aim to foster end-to- end supply chain transparency to improve forecasting, product availability and con- sumption of goods.
“These are the things that healthcare orga-
nizations simply cannot succeed without,” Turner said. “The pandemic has proven that our antiquated ways of forecasting are no longer enough to provide the clinical support that our roles demand. From the largest IDNs
10 October 2021 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS •
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to small rural hospitals, we must be able to accurately and timely know the needs of our clinicians. More effective demand planning calls for more robust analytics systems, but it also means we need to get better at feeding those analytics systems with better data. After all, junk in, junk out. So I think that processes, tools and technologies that automate – or at least streamline – demand chain data will play a pivotal role as well.”
Demand management and predictive analytics software reinforced by AI must be implemented as part of routine operations, according to Pete Bennett, Vice President, Global Planning, Cardinal Health Medical Segment. “Demand management and predictive analytics software is mission critical for a few reasons,” Bennett contended. “First, it creates a collaborative environment with common processes and technologies to get better insights and align with our customers. It also creates a common infrastructure for demand, deployment, inventory and supply for all product lines with common processes and technologies to operate. Finally, these are crucial in providing end-to-end visibility in our supply chain, which we know is more important now than ever amid the ongoing pandemic. Part of that visibility includes being able to use data for more common and consistent practices, it outlines ‘What If’ scenarios so supply chain leaders can be pre- pared for what may come, it offers predictive indicators and helps outline new KPIs [key performance indicators].”
Meanwhile, AI should be deployed “to monitor and learn from patterns, anticipate delays due to external factors – weather, con- gestion, capacity, etc. – and provide options to overcome delays, and recommend options to move products faster to the customers,” Bennett added. Pete Brennan, Regional Vice President, Operations, Cardinal Health U.S. Medical Segment, agrees that AI can help resolve sup- ply chain issues before or as they happen, but he points to Amazon as proving the essential importance of demand management/predic- tive analytics software.
“[Amazon’s] predictive analytics when placing an order are key when determining delivery – how fast, when and what route it will ultimately be on that week,” Brennan said. “With more uncertainty in the supply chain, having better predictive analytics can help you reduce costs and improve service. Predictive analytics take the guess work out of the equation [and] helps you understand customer patterns. In fact, this technology could help you know them better than they know themselves.” Brennan also believes domestic sourc- ing will be pursued to avoid shipping and
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