In this podcast we are joined by Angelique Beslic who is the Executive Consultant and Principal of Bridge Ventures, LLC, a Supply Chain Leadership and Education Organization. Angelique is also the Sr. Director of Supply Chain for Legacy Health. In her leadership role, her duties include all levels of procurement, contracting, strategic sourcing, clinical value analysis, and decision support. During our podcast, we delve into topics like clinical value analysis, a clinically integrated supply chain, integrating CVA into systems and daily decision making, trust between clinicians and Supply Chain, the cost vs. outcomes myth, clinical and operational service line governance (COSL), and much more!

Hospitals today typically contain hundreds of storage rooms and thousands of supply bins across multiple, geographically dispersed facilities in their health system. This translates to hundreds of thousands of paper labels that need to be manually updated and printed by already overburdened staff whenever there’s a change in item status, description, supplier, etc. One major impact of such antiquated methods of supply chain management is that it’s impossible for the item’s information to be updated in real time due to being dependent on deployable staff to travel to these sites to make the changes. Any updates on sensitive data such as back orders, recalls, or discontinued items (and indication of available substitutes) can’t possibly be handled in a timely manner with paper labels. As a result, there’s a much greater risk of not having on-hand the items that are needed for patient care. Electronic shelf label (ESL) solutions are a game-changer because they provide real-time item status and alerts, remote updates at the push of a button, and automated reordering. ESLs save time for both supply chain and clinical staff that would otherwise be spent on manual and low-value-added inventory tasks. They ensure item availability and safety (not recalled, not expired) and free up clinical staff to dedicate more attention and time to patients. Advanced ESL systems also have built-in replenishment signals to ensure that par levels are accurate and stockouts are prevented. They also allow for voice commands to guide the staff to needed items in crowded supply rooms in seconds using blinking LED lights on the ESL.

Recall management is a challenging area for healthcare organizations throughout the country as there is no set methodology, workflows, standardized tools, or training. Healthcare organizations are now developing their own recall management processes, workflows, and problem-solving tools. Luckily, a group of large health systems have gotten together to form the Recall Management Interest Group (RMIG) to help solve all the issues surrounding recall management and create best practices. This round table interview discussion today is with three Healthcare System Recall Management Leaders who are taking this challenging area to task and solving the challenges that have turned RMIG into a major positive force for advancing recall management in our industry.

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How do you know when to start, stop, or continue with a value analysis review? There should be valid reasons why you are going to perform a value analysis review, why you may stop it midstream, or why it must continue out to a final resolution. These are valid issues that VA/supply chain team members deal with every day. Today I am talking about the “Start, Stop, Continue” conundrum. If you get this dynamic right, you will do big things and get great results for your health system. If you get it wrong, you have just wasted a bunch of time with little or no results to show for it. The strategy here is to get it right more than you get it wrong.

Supply chain and value analysis seem like an endless world of projects, initiatives, conversions, problems, recalls, and new product request evaluations that just go on and on. Once you think you have everything taken care of, other problems or initiatives show up. One thing is for sure, there also comes a lot of uncertainty with all these initiatives, projects, and new product requests. You need to know with confidence how you are going to handle these situations strategically to meet your goals and objectives.

Pricing is tight. Sometimes we can find a few big savings opportunities but many times we are guarding against price increases in these inflationary times. Senior leadership is always looking to find new ways to reduce costs without having to face things like major layoffs or hiring freezes. Clinical supply utilization management (CSUM) is still a new element that has not yet been embraced by most health systems’ value analysis programs, but they should be considering it as a new way to save big beyond price.

In this special podcast we spoke with Jonathan Jarashow, CEO of OmniChannel Health, and discussed the unique needs and challenges of the healthcare supply chain. Jonathan and I delved into issues related to pricing, backorders, shortages, and how strategic value analysis and companies like OmniChannel Health can help to alleviate these challenges.

In this special podcast we interviewed hospital supply chain experts from Vuemed, the leading solutions firm in inventory management. Chris Anderson, Director of Technical Program Management, and Katherine McAlister, Customer Support Operations Manager, delve into the UDI system in the medical device supply chain and clinical management.

Everyone knows that value analysis is a big money saver from the standpoint of cost avoidance with new product requests as well as picking the right products from contract conversions. Not to mention, managing the supply resilience and recall issues that occur oh so often which hospitals cannot afford to throw major dollars at anymore. Value analysis allows you to manage all these issues and keep costs in check, but is that all value analysis can do? The answer to that question is no, value analysis can do so much more.

A Special Interview with Mark Copeland