Health systems supply chain leaders meeting

On 28^th June, Lorcan Sheehan and Jamie Kowalski hosted call with health systems supply chain leaders to review and discuss the findings of the latest Health Systems Supply Chain Insights report.  It is always great to get live input on the information that we share and look at ways to make the data actionable for those that participate in the process.

It also allows us to get some real time market feedback on the current experience in health system supply chains.   Some key points from our call this week:

• Automation – 70% of health systems in our survey indicated that they were in the process of investigating / deploying warehouse automation.  Recognition on our call that the range of options is increasing but also that capital budgets are tighter in the current climate, which can cause funding challenges.
• Inventory – we saw in our survey that 82% of health systems have increased inventory buffers following experiences during the pandemic.  This has created challenges with expiration of certain inventory and there was a feeling on the call that the pendulum may shift back to a need to optimising inventory in the future.
• Warehouse space – with warehouse space tighter in the market overall, health systems are looking to plan further ahead.  Planning warehouse capacity requires more inputs and data than we can cover in an industry survey, but we may look to host a follow up call at some point to discuss inputs and approaches.
• Talent development – those on the call recognised the progress that has been within health systems in improving supply chain capability.  There continues to be a need to learn best practices from each other and other industries.  Sharing best practices and collaborating on how to develop talent may be an opportunity.
• Metrics and benchmarking – metrics are at the heart of all of our supply chains but there remain challenges in comparing metrics across health systems.  Some good attempts in recent years including Gartner and others but more of an appetite to gain solid insights and learning among this community of supply chain leaders.

Thanks to those that participated in the call.  We also learned that we need to provide some more time for these discussions and will follow back up with another session in the not too distant future.

For more details on the Health Systems Supply Chain Insights series, click here or contact us directly.