Areas of Expertise
- Strategic vision for healthcare supply chain
- Solution marketing with a technology focus
- Industry networking and relationship building
Recent Activity
- Participated on a panel at the Nevada Healthcare Forum
- Moderated a panel for Supply Chain Canada on Becoming Resilient and Establishing Continuity Process
- Featured in COVID-19 aftershocks show product, service access, availability require more than shelf help, 25 Oct 2021 HPN
Social Media
Committees/Panel/Association Participation
- American Nurses Association
- American Nursing Informatics Association
- American College of Healthcare Executives
Areas of Interest
- Digital health transformation
- Healthcare Supply Chain
- Clinically integrated supply chain and the tie into outcomes
- Adoption and use of UDI and product/location standards
Points of View
One of the biggest challenges in healthcare is linking the importance of supply chain to the delivery of high-quality care. Supply chain is the second-highest cost to care delivery, following labor, so we need to elevate the visibility and strategic perspective. A holistic way to do that is through the clinically integrated SC. However, supply chain cannot achieve this goal in isolation.
There are four key constituencies within a health system that need to partner to deliver a successful transformation.
Of course, one is supply chain: knowing what, where and how to source the supplies and services that support care delivery. But more importantly, they need to expand their “self-definition” beyond procurement and enhance data fluency. The use of data and analytics to provide relevant performance metrics and the link to care delivery will heighten the leadership role supply chain needs to embrace.
Second, clinicians are critical in helping identify the correct supply and service mix needed to manage both maintenance and acute events of everyone’s healthcare. Clinicians are the link to improved population health, which in turn drives down overall costs – which is a global need.
Third, IT is needed because digital transformation is based on good data that is routed through the right solution pathways and ultimately into analytics platforms to guide data-driven decisions. The use of informatics and data science identifies the data sets that lead us to our overall care delivery goals.
Lastly, finance makes sure the investments needed in training, change management, hardware and software all drive toward the desired results and are fiscally sustainable. The importance of investment in technology is now an accepted fact in healthcare so it is essential these are smart and have a positive return on investment.
By building bridges between these constituencies and highlighting the role of data in digital health transformation, we can promote, develop and guide the changes needed in the industry globally.
We say it in the HIMSS mission statement: Reform the global health ecosystem through the power of information and technology, and supply chain is central to it all.
