St. Onge Company’s Tom Redding and Ash Crowe were quoted for a recent article in Healthcare Purchasing News about effective communication between Supply Chain and the OR. They each discussed how to get quick wins to establish a collaborative relationship between the two. Tom and Ash were interviewed alongside five other top industry experts for the article.
Tom Redding, senior managing director, Healthcare Services, St. Onge Co.
“A quick win is to complete a physical inventory in the OR/SPD to document the number of stocking locations for each product and the associated inventory dollars. Supply Chain can assist with reviewing historical demand patterns and flag potential opportunities for excess inventory. Supply Chain can develop a plan to return excess inventory to each vendor and/or determine the best way to bleed down inventories to the appropriate levels. Making a one-time inventory purge can reduce short-term expenses but it does not fix the underlying causes of excess inventory. It is imperative for health systems to continually assess their ordering processes, frequency/timing of ordering, supply unit-of-measures, and source of supply to determine if changes can be implemented to better manage their ordering frequencies and quantities.”
Ash Crowe, senior project manager, Healthcare, St. Onge Co.
“One of the most meaningful quick wins can be in making sure Supply Chain and Patient Billing are communicating, particularly on high-dollar items. If Supply Chain has purchased 10 of an item that costs over $1,000 in the last two months, can all 10 of that item be traced to a patient bill? These two departments often sit pretty far away from each other. Lack of visibility makes assumptions, and opportunities for missed billings often occur.”
Click here to read the full article on the Healthcare Purchasing News site!
