Bellwether League HOF to induct six professionals; ECRI's supply chain winners; plus Jobs!

August 4, 2023

Hello NAW Subscribers -

I hope you like this issue of National Accounts Weekly.

Sincerely,

John Pritchard

President of ANAE

Publisher of The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

Where your medtech GPO contracting strategy goes, your value will follow

By Matt O’Rourke, ZS Principal, Boston, and Abhishek Rathi, ZS Associate Principal, New York

Group purchasing organizations (GPOs) have been part of medtech and the healthcare value chain in the U.S. for more than a century. Over the past few decades, their influence on provider economics has expanded substantially. The value GPOs deliver to providers and patients may be hotly contested in the media, but there’s no question of the imperative for medtech manufacturers to develop effective GPO contracting strategies that best serve both patients and shareholders.

Bellwether League Foundation's Hall of Fame to induct six professionals

Bellwether League Foundation’s Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership selected six professionals, hailed as innovators, leaders, trailblazers and visionaries for their industry contributions and performance, as honorees of the Bellwether Class of 2023. They join 137 earlier honorees inducted since inception of the organization.

Bellwether League Foundation selected the following professionals for the 16th Bellwether Class:

Todd Abraham
Karen Conway, CMRP, CLSSGB
Michael Gray
Mary Beth Lang, DSc.
Charlie Miceli, C.P.M.
Deborah Petretich Templeton

They will be inducted Oct. 2 at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

ECRI announces the 2023 Healthcare Supply Chain Excellence Award winners

ECRI, an independent patient safety organization, announced the winners of its 2023 Healthcare Supply Chain Excellence Award. ECRI’s annual award recognizes U.S. healthcare organizations for achieving excellence in overall spend management and adopting best practice solutions into their supply chain processes.

The winners of ECRI's 2023 Healthcare Supply Chain Excellence Award are listed in alphabetical order:

GHX releases guidelines to streamline clinical supply chain efficiency

Global Healthcare Exchange released the “Consignment Implant Order Automation Guide,” the first industry guidelines designed to help solve the complex challenge of automating implant orders which comprise 40-60% of total supply chain spend.

The guidelines are the result of deep industry collaboration which began at GHX Summit 2022 where the company established a working group of approximately 20 leading provider and supplier organizations including Cleveland Clinic and UNC Health. This group continued to meet throughout the year to discuss and establish guidelines for optimizing implant order management, a longstanding challenge for the healthcare industry.

Healthcare organizations weigh in on proposed 2024 Physician Fee Schedule

Recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued the 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule that includes proposed changes to the Medicare Shared Savings Program. The agency proposed a calendar year 2024 conversion factor of $32.75, a 3.4% decrease from the previous year. Healthcare organizations have weighed in with their concerns regarding the potential ruling. Some of the major organization’s comments are listed below:

How one industry stakeholder is combating nursing shortages

By John Pritchard

From the IDN Directory Blog

In a recent blog post, Byron Jobe, president and chief executive officer of Vizient, lays out a problem that will challenge all U.S. Healthcare Supply Chain stakeholders for the rest of our careers - the current and seemingly never-ending shortage of nurses. Not only does he lay out the problem clearly, he also details a program that is moving the pace of improvement markedly.

CommonSpirit Health to directly manage facilities in Colorado, Kansas, Utah

CommonSpirit Health, one of the largest faith-based, non-profit health systems in the U.S., is now directly managing 20 hospitals and more than 240 care sites in Colorado, Kansas, and Utah.

These facilities had previously been managed by Centura Health. The hospitals that are now fully managed and operated by CommonSpirit Health are:

Vizient grants access to vulnerability index for community health equity

Vizient announced it is granting public access to the patent pending Vizient Vulnerability Index™. The access comes at no cost and provides a unique level of visibility for healthcare organizations to assess social determinants of health that impact health equity in the communities they serve. It is now available to anyone.

It aggregates 43 social determinants of health data points into nine categories at the local, regional and national levels that impact health outcomes.

Marathon Health acquires Cerner Workforce Health Solutions clinics

Marathon Health, a provider of direct primary care for employers, announced the acquisition of Cerner Workforce Health Solutions (WHS), a group of onsite and near-site health clinics. The acquisition will expand Marathon’s footprint, accelerating the reach of its population health model to more employers, locations and members. The transaction closed on Aug. 1.

The acquisition will add approximately 300 ambassadors, 21 clients, 35 health centers and 300,000 members to Marathon Health. It will expand its footprint in 15 states, including a significant expansion in Chicago, Kansas City and St. Louis.

Henry Schein to acquire a majority interest in Shield Healthcare

Henry Schein announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire a majority ownership position in Shield Healthcare, Inc., a supplier of homecare medical products delivered directly to patients in their homes.

The Shield Healthcare agreement follows Henry Schein’s 2021 acquisition of Prism Medical Products LLC, and represents a further investment in the homecare medical supplies market delivering products directly to patients in their homes.