Recall management is a challenging area for healthcare organizations throughout the country as there is no set methodology, workflows, standardized tools, or training. Healthcare organizations are now developing their own recall management processes, workflows, and problem-solving tools. Luckily, a group of large health systems have gotten together to form the Recall Management Interest Group (RMIG) to help solve all the issues surrounding recall management and create best practices. This round table interview discussion today is with three Healthcare System Recall Management Leaders who are taking this challenging area to task and solving the challenges that have turned RMIG into a major positive force for advancing recall management in our industry.

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How do you know when to start, stop, or continue with a value analysis review? There should be valid reasons why you are going to perform a value analysis review, why you may stop it midstream, or why it must continue out to a final resolution. These are valid issues that VA/supply chain team members deal with every day. Today I am talking about the “Start, Stop, Continue” conundrum. If you get this dynamic right, you will do big things and get great results for your health system. If you get it wrong, you have just wasted a bunch of time with little or no results to show for it. The strategy here is to get it right more than you get it wrong.

Supply chain and value analysis seem like an endless world of projects, initiatives, conversions, problems, recalls, and new product request evaluations that just go on and on. Once you think you have everything taken care of, other problems or initiatives show up. One thing is for sure, there also comes a lot of uncertainty with all these initiatives, projects, and new product requests. You need to know with confidence how you are going to handle these situations strategically to meet your goals and objectives.

Pricing is tight. Sometimes we can find a few big savings opportunities but many times we are guarding against price increases in these inflationary times. Senior leadership is always looking to find new ways to reduce costs without having to face things like major layoffs or hiring freezes. Clinical supply utilization management (CSUM) is still a new element that has not yet been embraced by most health systems’ value analysis programs, but they should be considering it as a new way to save big beyond price.

In this special podcast we spoke with Jonathan Jarashow, CEO of OmniChannel Health, and discussed the unique needs and challenges of the healthcare supply chain. Jonathan and I delved into issues related to pricing, backorders, shortages, and how strategic value analysis and companies like OmniChannel Health can help to alleviate these challenges.

In this special podcast we interviewed hospital supply chain experts from Vuemed, the leading solutions firm in inventory management. Chris Anderson, Director of Technical Program Management, and Katherine McAlister, Customer Support Operations Manager, delve into the UDI system in the medical device supply chain and clinical management.

Everyone knows that value analysis is a big money saver from the standpoint of cost avoidance with new product requests as well as picking the right products from contract conversions. Not to mention, managing the supply resilience and recall issues that occur oh so often which hospitals cannot afford to throw major dollars at anymore. Value analysis allows you to manage all these issues and keep costs in check, but is that all value analysis can do? The answer to that question is no, value analysis can do so much more.

A Special Interview with Mark Copeland

Let’s face it, inflation, clinical labor shortages, and market conditions are doing a number on our health systems’ bottom lines and forcing organizations to find new and better ways to eke out costs while maintaining quality and outcomes. This is easier said than done. Group purchasing organizations and your own custom contracting are readjusting to the new normal, but inflation has taken away the majority of what I call “home run savings opportunities” that we once had. There are still some singles and doubles with savings that can add up, but they just aren’t what they used to be, nor can they alleviate the hit our health systems’ bottoms lines are taking. None of this is new to anyone in the healthcare industry, we all know what the market conditions are. The big question is, where are we going to get the next major level of savings to start hitting doubles, triples, and even home runs again in the savings department?

A new year will no doubt challenge many in our supply chain industry to up our game to new levels that we never thought possible. Let’s face it, there is a heck of a lot of change going on and higher demands from our Chief Financial Officers to optimize costs to mitigate the budgetary shortfalls that all health systems are seeing. All this on top of the new product requests, contract conversions, recall facilitation, and managing teams and projects. This year could be a daunting year if you don’t have some form of strategic plan with clear-cut goals and objectives.

Timing is everything and it does apply to the cost/value/quality world in our healthcare supply chain. In a perfect world, you would want to take the time and have your value analysis teams review all of their major product and/or service category spends and wring the towel dry on savings. But given that the average hospital purchases anywhere from 5K to 25K line items (major systems can be 25K to 85K in SKUs) with over 2,000 contracted categories, there just isn’t enough time in our teams’ agendas to undertake this. This is a tough challenge that you need to be prepared for.

Cost optimization is the art and science of saving money for our healthcare organizations and, at one time, used to be fairly easy by just implementing that right group purchasing contract and garnering the savings that the contract would bring at the best tier level. This has dramatically changed in the past few years with the record inflation and market conditions all but eliminating the big savings we once got from our group purchasing organizations. So where do we go from here? No matter where you take your organization in the next level of cost optimization, you will need to incorporate the following dynamics into this next level of savings.

What is the point of signing a new or renewal contract with the goal of saving money if the savings do not materialize as planned? That’s what savings validation is all about. In fact, here are four ways to leverage savings validation for maximum results.

This podcast was a conversation with Rob Corley, Chief Growth Officer, from Impensa Advisors. Rob has previously been a VP of Supply Chain Services and Analytics for major GPOs and has a vast wealth of savings knowledge and experience in advanced non-salary (supplies & services) expenses. Our goal was to share with you the true potential of looking beyond contract price and thinking outside the box but with your existing data sets in order to save as much as 7% to 15% of your total non-salary budget. We packed a lot of great information and even some benchmarks into this podcast. We hope you enjoy this episode!

Everyone has a degree of experience in cost management, personal and business-wise, which we bring to the table in our value analysis meetings. There is also common sense that can guide us as well, but these experiences and common sense can only get us so far in the savings game. We need to have solid mindsets, knowledge-based tools, and some clever methods in order to find the next level of major savings led by value analysis. Here are the top four elements that will help you save big with your health system’s value analysis program.

We are in tough budgetary times right now with regards to expense reduction at just about every health system in the country. Increased labor costs, supply chain issues, pricing increases, and inflation are really hurting our health systems’ bottom lines. As a value analysis professional, you may ask, how do we make a big splash in the savings bucket when a good amount of our efforts are related to new products, product problems, contract conversions, and recalls? The answer is, retrospective value analysis reviews (RVAR).

With Suzanne Smith, Solutions Advisor, Lumere—a GHX Company, and Kerry Lepage, Clinical Nurse Leader and Director of Surgical Services at Maine Health. Suzanne and Kerry discuss how they got into healthcare supply chain and value analysis, successful strategic sourcing initiatives, the key stakeholders in value analysis, and how to gain buy-in for successful change.

We continue to see value analysis professionals working through a value analysis committee structure on new and renewal GPO contracts, new product requests, recalls, etc., even if they call them value analysis teams. Let me remind you that there is a big difference. To this end, here are three tips about value analysis committees vs. teams you can’t afford to miss:

I recently had a sales call with a hospital Director who was interested in starting a Clinical Supply Utilization Management (CSUM) program at his hospital. His reasons were that they had been doing as much as possible with GPO/contract price and standardization but that they were doing nothing about clinical supply utilization. Being new to the CSUM space, he thought that he could start small and benchmark something like the top 10-20 categories and go from there and asked if that was realistic. My answer was that I wish it was, but it wasn’t.

As we begin a new year, it is good to take a step back and take a good look in the mirror at your value analysis and cost management programs. These are especially important right now in these tough economic times where your Chief Financial Officer is looking for every dollar of revenue and savings they can muster. Plus, it is just a good time to improve the things that need to be improved and make your value analysis program more efficient, time savvy, and get better results than you have in the past.