JHC's Future Leaders; 5 Details to Have About All Your IDNs; Expanding Value-Based Care; plus Jobs!

April 28, 2023

Hello NAW Subscribers -

I hope you like this issue of National Accounts Weekly.

It includes The Journal of Healthcare Contracting's Future Leaders and more from the April issue.

Sincerely,

John Pritchard

President of ANAE

Publisher of The Journal of Healthcare Contracting (JHC)

JHC's Future Leaders

Who’s going to shape the future of the healthcare supply chain? These leaders have the energy, dedication and courage to help innovate the industry.

Dasha Tretiu
William Brewer
Nick Walker
Mark Carpenter
Tonya Bonczak
Eric Morrison

An evolution with physician engagement

Why physicians are valuable partners in operating the supply chain.

By LeAnn R. Born, Founder and Advisor with LeAnn R. Born Advisory Solutions

A career in healthcare supply chain allows for working with, learning from, and befriending a wide variety of people who contribute to care delivery in countless ways. Physicians are one of many groups of key stakeholders for the supply chain. Not only are physicians important when making certain product decisions, they are also valuable partners while operating the overall supply chain as a service.

It has been an interesting journey from how healthcare organization supply chains worked with physicians before COVID-19, how valuable it was to work closely together in the depths of COVID-19 and how those experiences are changing as we come out of the pandemic to enter our new normal. Physician engagement has numerous opportunities and is critical to the success of the healthcare supply chain.

Addressing caregiver burnout

The last few years have not been kind to the health and well-being of healthcare workers in the U.S. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic has put extreme stress on the healthcare workforce in the U.S., leading to workforce shortages as well as increased healthcare worker burnout, exhaustion and trauma, according to an issue brief from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) Office of Health Policy, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“These pandemic-related challenges have taken place in a context of significant pre-existing workforce shortages and maldistribution, as well as in a workforce where burnout, stress, and mental health problems (including an ongoing risk of post-traumatic stress disorder) were already significant problems.”

Driving value

HonorHealth’s Lisa Lavalette said value analysis teams are better equipped for today’s supply chain challenges.

Disruptions are here to stay in the healthcare supply chain. Yet because of this, hospitals and health systems are better equipped to deal with critical product shortages and disruptions than they were a few years ago.

“Over the last couple of years, we have upgraded and improved our processes, policies and employee training to confront and manage these disruptions,” said Lisa Lavalette, clinical value analysis program director, HonorHealth in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Our supply chain team uses these processes to apply mitigation strategies. In addition, we are still evolving using data analytics to drive value and partner with our service lines.”

Returning to normalcy is anything but for the healthcare supply chain

From the American Hospital Association

The vision of a more stable and predictable supply chain after peak product and drug shortages during the pandemic is looking more and more like a mirage.

From medical devices to personal protective equipment to essential drugs, scores of items are in short supply. The list of reasons for supply chain disruption are as varied as the product shortages themselves — raw materials shortages, recent COVID-19 outbreaks in China, low margins on some drugs, leading manufacturers to stop or reduce production to focus on newer, more profitable pharmaceuticals.

KP, Geisinger to expand value-based care access

Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Geisinger Health are announcing the launch of Risant Health and a definitive agreement to make Geisinger the first health system to join Risant Health to expand access to value-based care in more communities across the country. Upon regulatory approval, Geisinger becomes part of the new organization through acquisition.

Risant Health is a new nonprofit organization, created by Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, to expand and accelerate the adoption of value-based care in diverse, multi-payer, multi-provider, community-based health system environments.

IDN Directory Blog:

5 details you should have at your fingertips about all your IDNs

1. GPO Relationships

Every national account executive should have a reliable source of GPO relationships for their IDNs. It seems so straightforward, but it’s not. You probably know the GPO relationship for all your current customers, but how do you find out the GPO for an IDN that's been newly assigned to you with whom you don’t have any business?

Oftentimes this information resides with a supplier's sales operations team, and the national accounts executive needs to email someone and say, 'Hey, who is this IDN's GPO?'

Sales conversations and contract negotiations can happen so much faster and smoother when you know which GPO the IDN you're talking to uses!

Emails, chatbots and AI

By Grumpy Old Supply Chain Professional

Last year, my inbox was inundated with emails about how all my problems would be solved with blockchain. This year, I am hearing how a chatbot and AI will be the solution to all my problems. It is amazing how quickly it has gone from ignoring one thing in my inbox to ignoring another thing in my inbox.

The idea that all of this is the solution to my basic need of stocking the shelves and that I will pay you hundreds of thousands if not millions to implement your “solution” is so funny I almost smiled. Almost.