The past 18 months clearly have been some of the most difficult in history for healthcare supply chains. However, there are health systems that stand as beacons of tenacity, innovation and efficiency in uncertain times. Spectrum Health, the 2022 recipient of Supply & Demand Chain Executive's "Top Supply Chain Projects Award," is one such organization.
According to Supply & Demand Chain Executive Editor-in-Chief Marina Mayer, the prestigious recognition spotlights successful and innovative transformation projects that deliver bottom-line value across a range of supply chain functions. “For many of these collaborations, it's about achieving full visibility, complete forecasting, end-to-end leverage and the ultimate in sustainability,” she said.
For Spectrum Health, the COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst to build a more proactive and resilient process for managing backorders. The goal was to minimize the scrambling that typically occurs between purchasing, supply chain, value analysis and clinical teams when a product is back ordered, enabling work that is smarter, not harder. To accomplish this, a task force spearheaded by Clinical Value Analysis Program Specialist Lindsay Vronko implemented a rating system based on individual items’ level of criticality.
The new rating system’s benefits were seen during the ongoing backorder for oral pain medication used on infants in certain procedures. Stakeholders from across Spectrum convened to determine how to allocate the small supply of pain medication, ultimately deciding that it should be reserved only for more painful procedures, such as circumcisions.
As a result, less intense procedures, such as blood draws, now forgo medication use in favor of a new practice: distracting infants with a bottle or their nursing mother. Purchasing teams, meanwhile, continued to look for supply of the medication while increasing orders for formula and bottles. This practice change has not only resulted in new protocols but has also enabled Spectrum to discuss and implement updated pain-relieving methods.
Fueled by unbiased, vendor-agnostic data, GHX Lumere has empowered Spectrum’s teams to put evidence at the forefront of their conversations and backorder strategizing, as well as help guide any necessary shifts in clinical practice. The health system’s actions demonstrate that having a collaborative culture and access to the right tools can help make the most difficult procurement challenges more surmountable.
GHX Lumere congratulates its partners at Spectrum Health on earning their well-deserved “Top Supply Chain Projects Award 2022” from Supply & Demand Chain Executive.