From the Basement to the Board Room: How Strategic is Your Supply Chain Organization?

Supply chain departments remain undervalued with provider organizations. However, as everyone who is familiar with hospital financials knows, supplies are the second largest operating expense for a health system, after labor costs. 

According to Navigant’s Rob Austin, a confluence of events have occurred within the last few years which require health systems to develop “strategic” supply chain organizations in order to succeed in the rapidly changing U.S. healthcare landscape. System integration, consolidation, geographic expansion, ongoing cost pressures, technology, innovation, and care delivery model changes are just some of the factors making the operation of healthcare systems more complex than ever.

Learn more about four broad, industry-wide developments pushing the supply chain department to a more central position in the overall operations and capabilities of progressive health systems:

• Ongoing operating margin pressures on healthcare organizations
• Advent of big data and increased use of technology across business functions
• Supply chain emergence at intersection of cost, quality, and outcomes
• The shift to value-based payment