Three supply chain leaders shared these insights with Becker's ASC Review:
1. Prashanth Bala, director of ambulatory surgical centers for healthcare property developer Shields Health Care Group:
"It all starts with strong partners for supplies, who keep us apprised of where our supplies are coming from and when we can expect them to arrive.Technology then plays a crucial role in managing the daily schedule and inventory, particularly our electronic medical record, which helps us to determine our current needs. We mark from our inventory when a preference card is pulled. We then replenish as inventory nears our set par levels. We are in the process of implementing inventory management software that can help us electronically track what is pulled and used (based on preference cards) and what needs to be reordered.
2. Ann Castro, vice president of nonacute sales for healthcare supply chain analytics company BroadJump:
"In order to improve supply chain operations, ASCs need to start by tackling the big-ticket items. Those that handle a surgery center's supply chain needs can often get busy. However, focusing on the areas that might truly be hurting the center’s financial health can have an extremely beneficial outcome. This can be done by using data analytics tools that aggregate all of a center's data into one place, providing an overall view of supply spend, as well as a breakdown by category. This allows a surgery center to decide where to devote their time and resources in order to maximize savings and efficiency."
3. Jeff Berman, principal of U.S. accounting firm Grant Thornton's operations transformation:
"We predict healthcare organizations will make significant supply chain investments over the next three to five years. The main drivers of this investment include the ability to navigate increasing merger and acquisition activity and operate more strategically and at a higher level of capability. Much of the investments will be on new operating model designs, implementing enterprise resource planning cloud suite platforms, and optimizing processes. Key objectives will be to transform to more center-led sourcing and procurement, establish artificial intelligence-driven insights for faster decision-making, utilize digitized and mobile inventory control and integrate supply management and governance."