When the newly opened Flowood-based The Surgery Center at Mississippi was under development, administrator Meredith Warf and the center's physician owners spared no expense to ensure a patient-centric experience.
With this philosophy in place, The Surgery Center at Mississippi increased its monthly patient volumes by 100 percent, from 300 to 600 patients, within a year's time
The higher volume created new opportunities and challenges, such as streamlining supply chain processes and optimizing inventory through collaboration with vendors.. The Surgery Center at Mississippi and its physicians selected a single source for total joint implants and a dual source for sports arthroscopy and trauma implants. For the rest of its supply chain needs, the center turned to Cardinal Health.
Cardinal Health developed supply forecasts that allowed the center to order and stock just what it needed to accommodate its expanded caseload. Ms. Warf elaborated on the center's relationship with Cardinal Health and how that relationship supported future growth:
Meredith Warf: Historically, facilities stocked an abundance of supplies for a number of reasons. ... Expecting our daily procedure volume to increase, [we knew] it was time to work toward the idea of "just-in-time ordering." Cardinal Health was able to help us assess our supply chain and develop a model based on our needs. We decided we needed a daily delivery [system that] they then helped us work toward, which has been great all around.
We've used Cardinal Health for over four years now, and they've been instrumental in helping us manage supplies and costs as we've grown to doing 600 cases a month. They established our usage trends, which helps us with our near-just-in-time inventory ordering, and assist us with forecasting, so when we doubled our caseload at the new facility we were well prepared and able to scale up our supplies quickly.
More articles on supply chain:
Proposal submitted for $10.4M Tennessee surgery center project
49 ASC transactions through the first 3 quarters of 2019
California practices merge, plan to open surgery center