The critical role of the supply chain function in delivering high-quality patient care has once again come to light as U.S. hospitals, health systems and other care facilities continue to deal with unpredictable product shortages and quality issues.
Traditionally, many supply chain leaders and staff have worked behind the scenes to maintain needed inventories and ensure that the right products and supplies—from bandages and contrast media to surgical implants and syringes—are stocked in the right place at the right time. But recent supply chain demands and disturbances have thrust supply chain leaders into more prominent and visible roles.
“Successful supply chain professionals need to possess a global acumen, understanding how raw material shortages, global labor constraints and practices, the geo-political landscape, future pandemics and more may impact their supply chain and healthcare organization,” says Michael Schiller, senior director, supply chain, American Hospital Association, Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management, Chicago. “This focus falls outside the bounds of the traditional materials manager whose primary emphasis was more tactical, including inventory management, replenishment and reorder activities.”
As hospitals recognize the strategic role that supply chain leaders have stepped into, executive teams should consider adding another chair at the C-suite table, says Schiller. “A role for the supply chain leader at the executive level ensures that a healthcare organization is able to successfully navigate the dynamic, patient-centered and globally dependent supply environment that lies ahead of them,” he says.
Some hospitals and health systems are also reframing supply chain management as a core operational strategy versus a functional activity.
For instance, at Renown Health, Reno, Nev., Sean Poellnitz was given the title of chief resource officer. Poellnitz is charged with influencing the coordination of all types of resources—including people, capital equipment, products, and services—strategically across the organization to best serve patients and the community, as well as to control costs.
“A lot of organizations are getting more sophisticated about managing resources,” says Poellnitz. “To take care of our patient populations, we need to ask, ‘Do we have the resources?’ And then we need to align those resources, whether in the lab area, food services or the ICU, to position our organization to provide great stewardship to our community.”
Given the strategic nature of supply chain decisions, Poellnitz believes it won’t be long before a prominent national health system appoints a CEO who came up through supply chain operations. “Supply chain needs to be at the big table,” he says.
Maggie Van Dyke is a freelance writer and editor based in the Chicago area.
Strengthening Your Supply Chain
Back orders on supplies used to average about 1,500 a month across Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Then everything changed in March 2020, which was followed by lockdowns, clogged ports, severe weather, war and a scarcity of raw materials—all leading to myriad supply shortages, ranging from PPE to imaging and laboratory test supplies, at Mayo and health systems across the country.