Vote in a Survey for the IDN Directory; Vizient recognizes 22 suppliers and distributors for service excellence; Meena Medler begins new position at Owens & Minor as VP & GM for OP Product; plus Jobs!

September 29, 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

Voice Your Opinion!

A one-minute survey from the IDN Directory.

Only respondents see the results.

Please take this 1-minute survey that explores:

The IDN Summit & Expo
The top concern of IDN supply chain leaders
The hardest information to find about an IDN
Plus: If you could meet one IDN Supply Chain Leader, who would it be?

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Vizient recognizes 22 suppliers and distributors for service excellence

Vizient recognized the superior performance of suppliers and distributors for their work to deliver exceptional service to its providers. The recognitions were presented at the Vizient Connections Summit, held Sept. 18-21 in Las Vegas.

Vizient recognized the following suppliers and distributors for their support of Vizient provider customers in three categories:

The Supplier of the Year Awards honor suppliers in their respective categories who have demonstrated an unmatched willingness to partner with Vizient to improve their own performance and help support Vizient's mission to strengthen providers' delivery of high-value care by aligning cost, quality, and market performance.
The Excellence Awards honor suppliers who demonstrate superior service, support, reliability, ethics and integrity in collaboration with Vizient and Vizient providers within the respective award category.
The Program Excellence Awards honor superior service, support, reliability, ethics and integrity in collaboration with Vizient and Vizient provider customers within the respective program.

Meena Medler begins new position at Owens & Minor as VP & GM for OP Products, Kits and Services

Meena Medler of Owens & Minor has begun a new position at the company as Vice President and General Manager for OR Products, Kits, and Services.

Medler, formerly the VP of Supply Chain Management at UPMC, and the Vice President of Strategic Supplier Engagement at Premier Inc., began her new position at Owens & Minor in September of 2023.

According to Medler in a January 2023 Repertoire Magazine Interview, the supply chain has been undergoing a paradigm shift in the past decade from transactional healthcare to strategic healthcare, with emphasis on value analysis, clinical transformation, and total cost of care.

Supply Chain's Fight Against Cancer

Kreg Koford joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2018 as Senior Vice President of Supply Chain and Hospital Operations. After being responsible for $2.2 billion of non-labor spend at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, he was tasked with bringing a bold vision and developing new opportunities in existing relationships to transform how the cancer center buys, distributes, and uses resources.

Founded in 1884 and located in the heart of New York City, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s (MSK) mission is to end cancer for life. That focuses its strategy and its three pillars of education, clinical care, and research to create the best possible outcome for the patient, according to Koford.

He’s been building out teams, processes, and technology over the past five years, and COVID-19 hit just after onboarding his leadership team in 2019. “We’ve been on a journey with a pandemic right in the middle of it,” he said.

Avera Health, Owens & Minor to open new integrated service center at Foundation Park in 2025

Avera Health and Owens & Minor announced plans for a 330,000 square foot commercial building for supply distribution and other integrated services. The building will be constructed at Foundation Park in north Sioux Falls.

Owens & Minor is expanding its presence in the region and will remain Avera’s primary distributor of essential medical/surgical supplies. Owens & Minor will use the new Integrated Service Center as a hub to service Avera and leading health care organizations in the region.

Once complete, the Avera Integrated Service Center will house numerous Avera services, including:

Centralized pharmacy services
Supply chain, serving as central distribution for medical supplies for Avera hospitals, clinics and long-term care centers
Print shop
Biomedical Engineering, the department that maintains medical capital equipment, including patient monitors, beds and diagnostic technology
Home medical equipment distribution center
Courier operations

Site work will begin this fall with opening of the center planned for spring 2025.

32 HCA Healthcare hospitals recognized among 100 Top Hospitals by Fortune/PINC AI

HCA Healthcare announced that 32 of its hospitals have been recognized on the 2023 Fortune/PINC AI 100 Top Hospitals list for excellence in patient outcomes and experience, operational efficiency, financial health and community impact. The esteemed list aims to inspire hospital and health system leaders to strive for higher performance and provide added value to the patients and communities they serve.

According to Fortune/PINC AI, this year’s 100 Top Hospitals study used a balanced scorecard approach focused on clinical, operational, financial, and patient perception to evaluate 2,644 short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals. Unlike ranking programs that require hospitals to apply for evaluation, the program is strictly based on performance and publicly available data, including Medicare reports and patient satisfaction data.

In comparison to other hospitals, the study found the top 100 hospitals had better outcomes, including lower mortality rates, fewer complications, lower healthcare associated infection rates and shorter lengths of stay.

In addition to scoring among the top 100, 18 HCA Healthcare hospitals received the Everest Award for setting national benchmarks for the fastest, most consistent improvement rates and highest current year performance. This additional distinction recognizes the dedication of the boards, executives and medical staff leaders who developed and executed the strategies that helped drive the highest rates of performance improvement over the five-year period measured in the study.

Texas Children's announces a new president

Texas Children’s recently announced the appointment of Debra Feigin Sukin, Ph.D., as the new President of the organization. Sukin will join Texas Children’s on January 8, 2024, and report to Mark A. Wallace, who will continue to serve as Chief Executive Officer.

Sukin currently serves at Houston Methodist as an Executive Vice President with responsibility for four Houston Methodist hospitals and is the Chief Executive Officer of Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital, in addition to system responsibilities leading Neurosciences and the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart Center. Before joining Houston Methodist, she was the Senior Vice President of St. Luke’s Health System in the Texas Medical Center. She received her Master of Healthcare Administration from Washington University in St. Louis and her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Health Management at The University of Texas Health Science Center.

As President, Sukin will lead the largest children’s hospital in the nation, with 5.2 million patient encounters annually, more than 120 locations throughout Houston, Austin and Central Texas, and 17,000 world-class employees, faculty, specialists and pediatricians serving children and women across the globe. Texas Children’s is consistently recognized as a leader in pediatric care, ranking third in U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-24 Best Children’s Hospitals survey

CommonSpirit Health establishes Population Health Services Organization to accelerate value-based care best practices nationwide

CommonSpirit Health launched a national value-based services platform, Population Health Services Organization (PHSO), focused on expanding access to equitable care, improving quality and outcomes, and lowering the cost of care.

The PHSO will provide services such as advanced population health analytics, network management, care coordination, data management and analytics, technology infrastructure, reporting and more to help providers and provider networks excel in value-based care.

CommonSpirit Health serves urban and rural communities across 24 states, and is one of the nation’s largest providers of Medicare and Medicaid services.

As a result, CommonSpirit’s PHSO will serve a more diverse payer portfolio than any other management services organization nationwide, improving equitable health outcomes by supporting the delivery of high-quality, affordable and coordinated care for millions of patients across the country.