Healthcare Execs Manage Trends to Curb Supply Chain Logistics Costs
Healthcare isn’t just a costly quandary for patients. The issues and industry ailments faced by hospitals and providers are enough to make any healthcare supply chain logistics executive feel a little queasy.
Rising costs, reduced Medicare and insurance company reimbursements, tightening access to services, and future uncertainty leave organizations across the healthcare spectrum with a healthy dose of concern. Infuse this with increased competitive forces, and they’re left to cut costs to maintain already low margins in the era of healthcare reform.
Not to be forgotten, healthcare executives must ensure positive patient outcomes – the yardstick by which future reimbursement will be measured under the Affordable Care Act, which itself continues to increase regulatory mandates five years since its 2010 passage.
Supply chain management and logistics continues to be a big issue throughout the healthcare marketplace. Studies have shown that the vast majority of North American healthcare executives are concerned about managing supply chain costs.
Executives across the supply chain – from end users like hospitals, doctors’ offices, medical practices, ambulatory centers, integrated delivery networks, even those who serve the growing home-health setting; to wholesale distributors and group purchasing organizations; to manufacturers, like medical device and healthcare companies, biotech firms and drug companies – all are left to find solutions to improve logistics practices as a means to boost patient care and maintain the bottom line.
Some organizations have already wrung savings from medical supply product procurement, facilities costs, and even labor agreements. The next source of savings likely will be supply chain management and how process efficiency can deliver greater cost savings.
The coming years likely will see increased engagement of third-party logistics (3PL) providers equipped to meet specific healthcare customer needs. Services should include traditional inventory management, cold-chain logistics, the infrastructure to make multiple, just-in-time deliveries for healthcare organizations with limited on-site storage space, even vehicles suitable for deliveries to residential settings increasingly relied on for home-health care.
Driving these services will be greater data reporting and predictive analytics that will enable healthcare executives to make better informed decisions, wrote Bruce Johnson with healthcare consultancy GHX. By better capturing and linking inventory management and analytics with patient care costs, providers can reduce costs, ensure patient care, stabilize reimbursements and help boost profitability.
Five years into the brave new world of healthcare reform, industry change has proven challenging for executives across the healthcare marketplace. Better managing supply chain logistics could help organizations curb costs, ensure stable reimbursements, increase competitiveness, deliver quality patient care, and maybe even ease that queasy feeling.
Written by Keli Parker, Global Director of Product Development and Strategy for Ryder System Inc. With 25 years of experience in the supply chain arena, Keli serves customers in the healthcare, electronics, technology and appliance manufacturing industries.
