JHC-June.25

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The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

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HonorHealth’s Local Roots

How the Arizona IDN has grown its local spend, onboarded three hospitals and focused on utilization..

36 GPO Conversions

GPOs: Complete outsourcing solution or key tool in fiscal, operational arsenal?

How BayCare Health System’s Shaneka Demps and her value analysis teams drive clinical integration across the organization.

is a Team Sport

How Tower Health’s Melanie Ricci is bringing healthcare precision to supply chain management.

15 A Clinical Eye

How Ochsner Health’s Nattie Leger brings clinical insight to supply chain leadership.

20 Small Details, Big Impact

How pediatric hospitals are rethinking supply chain for better patient care.

30 Best Buy Health Banks on Hospital-at-Home Model

The consumer electronics retailer has found success in healthcare partnerships.

@

48 Six Things You Might Not Know About the Tariff Issue

50 Tariffs Put Pressure on U.S. Healthcare Supply Chain

Tariff impact and uncertainty is a growing crisis for U.S. healthcare providers, industry collaborative says.

52 Leading the Way

How the CAPS Research Initiative is shaping the future of supply chain management.

56 Technology in Post-Acute

How technology is changing the way post-acute care is delivered.

58 Supply Chain By the Numbers

60 It’s a Start

More resilient supply chains begin with bold legislation.

64 Industry News

: click subscribe

The Importance of Connections

Mark Dozier, who leads Strategic Sourcing & Engagement at HonorHealth, has played a key role in expanding his organization’s supplier diversity program, doubling its MBE spend from $37 million to $70 million in three years. In an interview with the Journal of Healthcare Contracting, he emphasized the importance of supporting local businesses to strengthen the Phoenix community and ensure long-term sustainability. Dozier is also managing the integration of three recently acquired Steward hospitals, transitioning them to HonorHealth’s systems and culture. Additionally, he champions utilization improvements to reduce costs and enhance efficiency, while fostering a strong, connected team through goal-setting and workplace engagement.

Connection is a common thread in each of our interviews for this issue. We profile several supply chain leaders who use their clinical backgrounds to connect with clinicians in our Model of the Future section. BayCare’s Shaneka Demps says her critical care experience in pediatrics and cardiology is an asset when speaking to surgeons about the products they need, or don’t need, and when working on the delicate populations her health system serves.

Ochsner Health’s Nattie Leger, who has a nursing background, said those in leadership with clinical

experience have seen how products and services impact the day-to-day care of patients, and can integrate that knowledge into their conversations. Tower Health’s Melanie Ricci explained how the process she used in nursing had carried over into her supply chain position.

Another point of connectivity in the industry has been Vizient’s Pediatric Alliance, a specialized initiative designed to support pediatric healthcare providers by offering tailored supply chain solutions, analytics, and educational resource. We interviewed several members on the unique challenges that pediatric supply chains face.

Also in this issue, the Healthcare Industry Resilience Collaborative (HIRC) provides some insights into how tariffs are creating new vulnerabilities for healthcare providers and the supplier partners who serve them. One solution? Transparency, which only happens when suppliers and providers enter a truly open, connected partnership.

“Transparency builds trust, enables proactive planning, and places trading partners in a better position to face challenges together,” HIRC noted. Indeed, a emphasis on connectivity will ultimately be a key ingredient in findings solutions to market disruptions, both today’s and tomorrow’s.

John Pritchard

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Speaking the Same Language

How BayCare Health System’s Shaneka Demps and her value analysis teams drive clinical integration across the organization.

BY DANIEL BEAIRD

Shaneka Demps leans on her infection prevention credentials and clinical background in everything she does at BayCare Health System, a provider that operates 16 hospitals across Florida.

“Suppliers have come to us in the past and said, ‘This ink pen will save you from infections. Spend double or triple the cost for this item. It’s going to help you,’” she explained.

Back then, BayCare’s supply chain team didn’t have clinicians on board to look at the science, ingredients or how the product was made and if it truly would improve outcomes.

“That’s how I got into supply chain in the first place,” said Demps, manager of the value analysis department for BayCare.

Her responsibility is to create, facilitate and manage the value analysis process systemwide. The supply chain team and value analysis committee meet monthly with BayCare’s infection prevention director to share which products are being requested, what the outcomes are and the peer-reviewed literature that supports or disputes them.

“I’m certainly not the expert, but we just know how important it is to all the products that we touch,” Demps said. “Our clinical experiences all lead to a wide range of critical thinking and innovative solutions.”

Balancing act

Demps still holds an IP certification, and with many years of infection prevention experience, she focuses on patient outcomes while reviewing cost and quality. She thinks about how a product portfolio change or addition impacts the quality of BayCare’s patient care and experiences.

“That’s been truly beneficial, specifically my critical care experience in pediatrics and cardiology, when speaking to surgeons about the products they need, or don’t need, when working on the delicate populations we serve,” she explained.

The clinically integrated value analysis committee at BayCare drives standardization and improved outcomes through research-driven product selection. Financial stewardship, quality and compassionate patient care, and community health are their driving guidelines through clinical engagement, vertical integration and true clinical collaboration.

Demps says clinical preference can be a challenge when working with physicians who want what they feel is best to use for patient care. But it really comes down to the product improving patient outcomes. Many times, it is necessary to host peer dialogue so that the clinicians can speak to their counterparts to review outcomes and the perceived product benefits in order to provide a consensus on recommending or considering a physician preferred item.

“The product could be nice and shiny, but does it allow for a better

experience for the patient?” Demps asks. “We drive the conversation to explore if the product provides enough benefit to add cost to the patient’s case and that’s a balancing act.”

Successful decision making and implementation

BayCare analyzes the complete cost of their decision making. That’s everything from soft costs like avoiding health careassociated infections (HAIs), decreasing OR time and improving efficiencies to hard costs like deploying new products or processes, coupled with additional code or applicable reimbursement.

Peer-reviewed literature and cost and comparative benchmarking play major roles.

“We should receive competitive pricing based on our model, size and commitment,” Demps said. “We understand there are times when we need to use products to improve our ability to provide care, but the cost increase cannot impede our ability to provide affordable care to our community.”

One of the most successful value analysis projects BayCare implemented was the internalization of spinal bracing

for the organization. They now stock one supplier’s braces in their consolidated service center instead of ordering cervical collars, lumbosacral orthosis (LSO) and thoraco-lumbosacral orthosis (TLSO), or back braces, from outside OEM manufacturers. This allows for earlier ambulation and decreased length of stay for patients.

Prior to the change, patients were waiting for the brace to be delivered to the hospital, which could take two days or more after measurements.

“That was time the patient was clear to ambulate with physical therapy but couldn’t since they were waiting for the appropriate brace,” Demps said. “Now the PT or RN grabs the brace from the supply room and assists the patient with early mobilization after spine surgery. In addition to cost savings, this is a better outcome for our Neuroscience Institute patients.”

Clinical stakeholders make passionate projects

These successful product decisions are made with the help of BayCare’s clinicians and their involvement in the value analysis process. Each value analysis committee has clinical stakeholders that provide vital information on current practices, best case scenarios and challenges to the status quo. Clinicians vote on each decision and actively evaluate products, providing objective and measurable information on the experience and outcomes.

Demps’ team includes many clinicians, and they are always listening in committee meetings. Specifically, when BayCare’s environmental services (EVS) committee meets, they’re always tuned in to keywords.

“We’re always infusing ourselves into their conversation because clinicians

Shaneka Demps

want to do the right thing for the environment, but they might not know what to do with the information,” she said. “If I hear, ‘We’re wasting the product a ton and I don’t think it’s right,’ I know my team can figure out how to avoid that waste in the future.”

Demps is excited about a BayCare passion project this year. Patients and the EVS committee have expressed dissatisfaction with seeing new and never-opened items like the deodorant and hair comb provided by the hospital being thrown in the trash. So, BayCare is giving patients a simple card to choose what they would like to receive in their care package and what they would use. This is a more consistent method to help curb waste.

Demps said. “Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a CSC, but we do, and our inventory logistics team is amazing.”

Demps says BayCare monitors what’s going on in the communities it serves and what’s at risk. They also monitor where their products come from and if there is something on the horizon that could disrupt operations.

“We learned during the pandemic that we should really know where our suppliers get our product from,” she said. “Is it from Puerto Rico where a hurricane could hit? Is it from China where tariffs could take effect? Is there going to be a strike at a port?”

BayCare tries to have enough stock in its warehouse but also acts quickly when an oncoming issue is in the way of

“ We learned during the pandemic that we should really know where our suppliers get our product from. Is it from Puerto Rico where a hurricane could hit? Is it from China where tariffs could take effect? Is there going to be a strike at a port?”

“We’re even developing a tool to capture unused items and donate them to local missions,” she said. “It is truly my warm and fuzzy project of the year.”

Challenges local and abroad

BayCare knows the challenges of getting supplies when natural disasters hit, or unforeseen circumstances upset the day-to-day of patient care. The Florida health system is familiar with the threat of hurricanes like Helene and Milton last year and they’re still talking about IV solution supplies.

“We make sure we have a certain amount of supply in our warehouse,”

product. Demps’ background helped BayCare avoid product that wasn’t protective during the pandemic. She could look at the specs and determine if the barrier for care was met or not.

“I was really keyed in on what the suppliers were trying to bring in,” she said. “A lot of sites were frantic because they had used something that wasn’t protective. But if it didn’t meet our specifications, we didn’t use it.”

Present and future adaptations

A lot of things were learned. All new product, equipment or service opportunities at BayCare Health System today must

be reviewed with BayCare Purchasing Partners (BPP), BayCare’s Group Purchasing Organization and value analysis prior to adoption or approved usage of the new item/opportunity at any of its sites. BayCare encourages vendors to discuss opportunities with BPP prior to engaging clinicians for interest and support. “We take this opportunity to head off creating a ground swell of clinician support for something that we cannot implement due to existing contractual obligations,” Demps said. “Our role is a simple review of the existing obligations and informing the vendor whether they are clear to begin clinical discussions. If interested, a clinical champion will begin the official request process for VAT submission. Our clinically integrated value analysis teams must review and approve all opportunities for cost impact, operational improvement, quality improvement, waste reduction etc.”

But providers and suppliers are still learning. Demps hopes for a better way to organize and categorize data across all providers for better data management, substitutions and categorization. She says that while the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) helps, most GPOs and suppliers have their own versions of approved categorization.

And with the onset of artificial intelligence, Demps can see a future where value analysis innovations adopt AI models to input the requested service, product or project and run it through various intricacies in a provider’s system while factoring in expected outcomes and peer-reviewed literature to apply a score of adoption.

“That’s in my head,” she said. “But it is the future.”

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Lab-first approach to distribution

Products, supplier, and supply chain considerations

In contrast to traditional medical product supply chains, clinical labs have nuanced requirements that necessitate specialized distribution strategies. These requirements include time and temperature sensitivity, shelf life and stability, Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) compliance, and potentially higher SKU complexity. Because test results impact patients and operational decisionmaking, hospitals and health systems benefit from utilizing distribution ser vices tailored to the unique needs of laboratories.

As a specialized lab distributor, Cardinal Health supports organizations through clinically credible and transparent lab solutions, broad product portfolios that support each lab discipline and tailored supply chain services that drive resiliency and integrated value across workflows.

Lab and supply chain collaboration

Even with so many medical decisions relying on the information generated in the lab, lab departments are often overlooked in healthcare supply chain conversations. Even in cases where lab directors and technicians only influence purchasing decisions, their input is critical as the end users of the product. Cardinal Health facilitates collaboration between

lab and supply chain organizations to help ensure lab input is integrated into broader purchasing, logistics, and efficiency initiatives. This approach helps drive supply chain optimization through a unified distribution strategy that accounts for the needs of clinical, laboratory, and supply chain stakeholders by identifying shared opportunities to streamline and rationalize inventory, leveraging standardization across departments while preserving labspecific quality and supply requirements.

Providing a clear, unified view of the overall value picture gives leaders the ability to assess ROI not only by cost, but by outcomes like reduced waste, inventory optimization, and improved throughput. Collaborating in this way also helps ensure that lab professionals can use the clinically relevant products they prefer.

Emily Berlin, Vice President, Laboratory Products, Cardinal Health said, “As a leading lab distributor, our position in the care continuum enables us to facilitate collaboration between lab and hospital supply chain leaders to help organizations maximize the value of their contracts and make more informed, holistic decisions that drive efficiencies and quality across workflows.”

Lab supplies and equipment

In addition to clinical preference, lab supplies like temperature-sensitive reagents and hazardous materials require strict conditions during storage and transportation to ensure stability and quality. These products must not only arrive on time, but also in the exact condition needed for safe and effective use. Cardinal Health helps ensure product integrity from warehouse to end user through a robust network of refrigerators, freezers, cool rooms and chem vaults that preserve

efficacy and shelf life of sensitive lab products during storage, transportation and delivery. Within the distribution centers, employees who handle the pick, pack, and ship of specialized laboratory product undergo additional training to ensure the integrity of these specialized products are maintained throughout the supply chain.

All distributed products, whether national brand or Cardinal Health™ Brand, are subject to rigorous quality assurance processes. National brand products are inspected upon receipt and returned if defective or mislabeled, with suppliers held accountable for quality. Cardinal Health Brand products undergo rigorous multi-step supplier evaluation and product qualification. Suppliers sign quality agreements, submit to audits, and must comply with strict labeling and performance requirements.

Cardinal Health has a team of more than 200 dedicated lab specialists that help labs and supply chains navigate evolving challenges by connecting them with products, including Cardinal Health™ Brand options, capital equipment and offerings like the Reserved Inventory Program, sequestered lots and kitting services. Because the organization

has relationships with leading manufacturers, lab representatives are able to offer unbiased recommendations that suit the needs of each individual lab.

Supplier relationships

Strong supplier relationships are a pillar of Cardinal Health’s resiliency strategy. The organization works with more than 400 lab suppliers and continually identifies opportunities to fill gaps with new supplier relationships, emphasizing accountability and collaboration with suppliers who consistently meet high benchmarks for quality, responsiveness, and compliance with fulfillment lead times.

When disruptions arise, Cardinal Health deploys a range of mitigation strategies including working with suppliers to expedite open orders, transferring inventory between distribution centers to resolve localized stockouts, employing fair share allocation models to help ensure equitable access to limited supply, prioritizing critical needs while inventory stabilizes, and providing visibility to the cause and resolution date for supply disruptions.

Supply chain modernization

Cardinal Health has committed to a multiyear transformation of its supply chain to meet the evolving needs of customers. This transformation aims to reduce complexity, drive resiliency and integrate the supply chain into the total cost-to-serve. Investments include new distribution centers, robotics, and AI-enabled planning systems that improve responsiveness and transparency.

“We have been driving a multi-year transformation across our supply chain with resiliency at the forefront—that transformation includes investments in

Emily Berlin

new buildings, technology, and automation to enhance our ability to provide transparency to our customers,” said Pete Bennett, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain, Global Medical Products and Distribution, Cardinal Health.

Cardinal Health has implemented solutions including Kinaxis® for advanced planning with AI capabilities and warehouse automation and productivity solutions such as InVia, GreyOrange, and Locus Robotics.* Additionally, Cardinal Health has developed proprietary Digital Workers and leverages AI, machine learning and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) within its purchasing operations.

When implementing new technologies, Cardinal Health focuses on delivering quantitative value across the supply chain, targeting areas that have gaps in performance or capability. The transformation efforts target enhancements across areas including safety, quality improvement through “mistake-proofing” processes, ontime delivery despite demand fluctuations, cost reduction while improving storage density, and boosting workforce morale.

Bennett said, “Our investments are enabling consistent, on-time delivery, lowering operational risk through predictive planning and automation and enhancing agility to support rapid growth, changing demand, or disruptions.”

Industry engagement

Cardinal Health plays an active role in shaping the future of healthcare distribution through involvement in industry

organizations like Healthcare Industry Distributors Association (HIDA), AdvaMed Dx, and Healthcare Industry Resilience Collaborative (HIRC), where the organization shares blueprints and performance metrics.

Cardinal Health’s U.S. medical products distribution business received HIRC’s

Diamond-level rating for high achievements in supply chain resiliency maturity. The Diamond level, the highest award possible, indicates outperforming scores for Cardinal Health’s medical and laboratory products distribution business in key areas vital to a resilient supply chain. Maintaining this level of excellence is a critical focus for the organization.

“We strongly value opportunities to collaborate with industry associations and help shape the future of healthcare. Leading the way in distribution best practices and engaging with leaders and policy makers across the industry is one way we achieve this,” said Berlin.

When patient care is on the line, labs benefit from choosing a distributor who cares about more than their bottom line. Cardinal Health helps organizations maximize the value of laboratory distribution so they can best serve their patients’ needs. Learn more at cardinalhealth.com/labdistribution

*Kinaxis®, InVia, Grey Orange and Locus Robotics performance and service features described herein are provided by Kinaxis®, InVia, Grey Orange and Locus Robotics as the supplier or solution of the services and are provided by Cardinal Health.

©2025 Cardinal Health. All Rights Reserved. Cardinal Health, Cardinal Health LOGO, are trademarks of Cardinal Health and may be registered in the US and/or in other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Patent cardinalhealth.com/patents

© 2025 Kinaxis, ©InVia, ©GreyOrange and ©Locus Robotics. All Rights Reserved.

Peter Bennett

The critical impor tance of specialized lab distribution Cardinal Health™

When your patient care is on the line, choose a lab distributor who cares about more than their bottom line.

who cares about more than their bottom line

For healthcare organizations looking to optimize their supply chain to best suppor t their labs, the impor tance of choosing the right laborator y distributor is crucial Specialized lab distribution and supply chain collaboration are vital to driving efficienc y, optimizing per formance and expanding access to testing for a wider population of patients.

For healthcare organizations looking to optimize their supply chain to best suppor t their labs, the impor tance of choosing the right laborator y distributor is crucial. Specialized lab distribution and supply chain collaboration are vital to driving efficienc y, optimizing per formance and expanding access to testing for a wider population of patients.

Ex tensive product breadth

National brand access, exclusive manufac turer relationships and Cardinal Health™ Brand private label offering

National brand access, exclusive manufac turer relationships and Cardinal Health™ Brand private label offering.

Seasonal support for respirator y testing

Seasonal support for respirator y testing

Leverages historical data to suppor t reser ving inventor y ahead of the season.

Leverages historical data to suppor t reser ving inventor y ahead of the season

Specialized handling and cold- chain network

Cold- chain solutions across the U. S. with 34 laborator y distribution centers.

An industr y leader in supply chain transparenc y and resilienc y

Cold- chain solutions across the U S with 34 laborator y distribution centers. An industr y leader in supply chain transparenc y and resilienc y

Awarded the HIRC resilienc y and transparenc y badges for continuous effor ts and commitment to supply chain resilienc y and transparenc y

Awarded the HIRC resilienc y and transparenc y badges for continuous effor ts and commitment to supply chain resilienc y and transparenc y.

Healthcare is a Team Sport

How Tower Health’s Melanie Ricci is bringing healthcare precision to supply chain management.

Melanie Ricci, Vice President of Supply Chain at Tower Health, brings a unique perspective to her role, combining her background in nursing with her expertise in supply chain management. She believes the principles of nursing – careful assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation – can be just as effectively applied to supply chain management.

For Ricci, nursing is a process that revolves around delivering optimal patient care. “You follow a structured set of steps: assess, plan, implement, and evaluate,” she explains. “Supply chain is no different – it’s just focused on materials instead of people. But the process is the same, and it has been key to the success of my team and me.”

At Tower Health, Ricci leads an expansive supply chain operation that includes purchasing, contracting, value analysis, and distribution. But her responsibilities extend far beyond traditional supply chain management. She oversees critical support services such as construction management, facilities management, food and nutrition services, environmental services (EVS), security, and laboratory services, all of which are integrated into her department’s operations.

Ricci’s journey to supply chain leadership began in nursing. After earning a nursing degree, she spent several years in long-term care, hospice, and correctional nursing. Her next move was into the dialysis sector, where she led operations for a global dialysis company, overseeing 14 outpatient clinics and nine hospitals.

It was during her time in consulting that Ricci discovered her passion for supply chain. She was able to leverage her clinical expertise to transition into value analysis, an area that piqued her interest. Her work in value analysis not only broadened her understanding of supply chain but also led her to a key mentor, Steve Tambolas, a seasoned supply chain professional. Tambolas provided Ricci with invaluable guidance and the opportunities that would ultimately propel her into roles in contracting and operations.

Today, Ricci continues to merge her clinical knowledge with her deepening supply chain expertise, driving efficiencies and improvements across Tower Health’s diverse operations. Her leadership is a testament to the power of process-driven thinking, whether in healthcare or supply chain management.

First-hand experience

Ricci believes in the power of collaboration between clinical and supply chain teams to improve patient care. Her clinical background provides her with a rare ability to engage in candid, meaningful conversations with nurses and physicians about the products they use in patient care. “I understand what it’s like to be in their shoes,” she said. “This allows me to have open, honest discussions about whether a product is truly enhancing patient care or if it’s simply a matter of preference.”

One example Ricci frequently cites is the discussion around IV catheters, which are often classified as clinical preference items due to the way they feel in a clinician’s hand. “As a nurse, I would get frustrated when they would change the IV catheters,” she recalled. “They felt different, and it impacted my ability to provide the best care.” Now as a supply chain leader, Ricci uses this firsthand experience to connect with clinicians on a deeper level, helping them understand the nuances behind product choices and how they affect patient care. “When we’re discussing safety catheters, I can say, ‘I remember how they felt,’ and that adds depth to the conversation.”

By drawing on her own clinical experiences, Ricci fosters trust among nurses

and physicians. She emphasizes that her approach to supply chain isn’t solely about cost savings; it’s about ensuring that any product introduced into the clinical setting aligns with the needs of both the patients and the healthcare providers. “I’ve used these products too,” she said. “If I wouldn’t use it at the bedside, I wouldn’t bring it to you.” This approach fosters stronger relationships and encourages open, constructive dialogue around product choices, promoting a culture of teamwork and mutual respect.

Ricci also understands that not all clinical areas will have products she has firsthand experience with, particularly in more specialized fields such as cardiovascular care, where innovations like aortic valves and stents come into play. However, she believes in the power of team collaboration and continuous improvement. “When you have a strong team of value analysis experts, you can rely on their knowledge and connections to bridge gaps,” she said. “Even if I’m not the expert in a specific area, I know I can connect clinicians with the right resources.”

Melanie Ricci

Ricci’s leadership is centered on relationship-building, process improvement, and a shared commitment to patient care. She continually works to ensure that the supply chain team is aligned with the clinical needs of the organization, using her clinical experience as a foundation for ongoing collaboration. In doing so, she fosters a culture of teamwork that leads to better patient outcomes and more efficient supply chain operations across Tower Health.

chain, to make sure someone’s life on the other side of that is a little bit easier.” This sense of responsibility drives Ricci’s passion for her work, motivating her to ensure that the clinical teams, support service teams and patients have what they need to succeed.

Her experiences in healthcare also extend beyond her professional role, as Ricci has personally navigated the experience of having family members in the hospital or long-term care

Ricci’s leadership philosophy is rooted in servant leadership, where she prioritizes the well-being and recognition of her team members. She understands that the collective effort of clinicians, support staff, and supply chain teams is crucial in delivering quality care.

Seen and heard

Ricci views her work in supply chain as an extension of her dedication to healthcare, where her servant leadership approach fosters a culture of collaboration, empathy, and continuous improvement across her team and the organization.

During her time as a nursing consultant, she made it a priority to visit emergency departments (EDs) and intensive care units (ICUs) across the country to see firsthand how care was being delivered. “I recognize that I get paid because someone is having a life-changing event in one of those beds, which is incredibly humbling,” Ricci explained. “It’s a very unique position. I remain incredibly grateful to be able to provide care in this fashion now, through supply

facility. This has only deepened her commitment to ensuring that clinical teams don’t have to worry about product availability. “It’s important to me that the people taking care of my family members don’t have to worry about whether or not they have the supplies they need,” she said. “The team I work with makes this job amazing. They’re incredible, empathetic and committed individuals with the acumen and the heart to get things done, all while keeping a great sense of humor. I love healthcare and the fact that through our work, people get better.”

Ricci’s leadership philosophy is rooted in servant leadership, where she prioritizes the well-being and recognition of her team members. She understands

that the collective effort of clinicians, support staff, and supply chain teams is crucial in delivering quality care. One of her most memorable experiences occurred when she observed support services quickly turning over a surge unit. The facilities team, working alongside lab, supply chain, and other support staff, transformed a vacant unit into a fully functioning space within just four hours. “I watched in amazement as they worked efficiently under immense pressure,” Ricci recalls. “And then I saw my nursing colleagues come in, completely unaware of all the work that had been done to make it possible for them to care for patients.”

This experience inspired Ricci to implement a “seeing tour” for her team, helping them understand the critical roles of all the behind-thescenes staff who often don’t receive the recognition they deserve. “Whether it’s supply chain, facilities, security, food services, or environmental services (EVS), these professionals participate in your loved one getting better, but they often go unseen,” Ricci said. “I want our people to see that. Supply chains should be seen because they do an amazing amount of work.”

Ricci’s approach to leadership highlights the importance of empathy, teamwork, and a commitment to process improvement. By fostering an environment where each team member is valued and supported, Ricci ensures that Tower Health’s supply chain operations contribute to better patient outcomes. She continues to inspire her team through her servant leadership style, leading by example and emphasizing the critical role that every individual plays in the healthcare system.

A Clinical Eye

How Ochsner Health’s Nattie Leger brings clinical insight to supply chain leadership.

Early on in Nattie Leger’s nursing career, Ochsner Health’s supply chain leaders were seeking new opportunities to lower the cost of care, increase value, and incorporate more clinician perspectives. The health system recognized that the field of nursing encompassed each aspect of the hospital and healthcare system, so Leger was brought in to help with these initiatives.

Leger, now the Vice President of Supply Chain at Ochsner Health, calls on her background as a nurse to guide her current leadership role. She started out as an emergency department (ED) nurse 30 years ago for Ochsner Health, which has over 45 hospitals and several hundred clinics across Louisiana and Mississippi.

Leger worked her way up the health system’s operational chain, eventually transitioning from a nurse to an emergency department leadership role; and then advancing further to land a position as the vice president of nursing.

In her current position, Leger is responsible for heading the clinical integration of supply chains across the health system and creating value in clinical performance.

“My previous clinical experience adds great value to the supply chain. Healthcare workers bring clinical expertise and vast knowledge to the table – whether it’s within critical care, surgery, or the emergency department,” said Leger. “Those in leadership that have clinical experience have seen firsthand how products and services impact the day-to-day care of patients, and when we integrate that knowledge, it helps in our conversations with clinicians.”

At the time of her move from clinical to supply chain, Ochsner Health was just beginning its campaign of moving toward the quadruple aim to focus on improving quality, patient safety, and affordability of products, which was a transition from traditional supply chain goals considering only the product and its price.

“I was challenged to come in and help lead Ochsner Health’s blossoming supply chain initiative. It wasn’t unique just to Ochsner Health, it was very much a service-driven line at that time, lots of hospitals were looking at this, such as

within orthopedic service line, neuro, and more,” said Leger. “Nursing touches so much, whether it’s physician driven or nursing driven, and so I came in to help Ochsner Health develop what we call our clinical supply chain.”

Clinician perspective and the supply chain

Leger collaborates with a team comprised of a respiratory therapist, a medical director, surgical techs, and registered nurses (RNs) from the OR, ICU, and other procedural areas. As needed, her team integrates key stakeholders.

for the clinical leg, reporting directly to Regine Villain, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Ochsner.

“The clinical and operational legs at Ochsner Health partner very closely, so in day-to-day operations, whether it’s logistics, procurement, or sourcing, there’s always a clinical team member that we can go hand in glove when we’re considering and evaluating new products,” said Leger.

Improving value analysis

Within the healthcare industry, value analysis is considered a systematic

“As supply chain leaders, we always challenge ourselves to explore how we can revamp processes, integrate new technology, and look at new practices and not just the products. It’s not just the latest shiny new toy, but instead focused on quality, patient safety, efficiencies and how to help drive outcomes.”

“Having clinicians in supply chain supports the idea of being truly clinically integrated, where clinicians speak with each other, seeking feedback on various initiatives,” said Leger. “The clinical perspective allows us to have more advanced medically based discussions on patient care, and to really evaluate how supplies and services impact that patient care. We can, from there, decide whether we want to redesign patient care, or we’re looking to explore new technology, services or products.”

Ochsner Health’s supply chain is structured with two ‘legs’– one operational and the other clinical. Leger is responsible

approach to evaluating products, services and processes with the goal of optimal, quality patient care. Ochsner Health’s value analysis focus is on operational excellence, said Leger, ensuring the company provides patients with the highest level of care by providing “the right product, at the right time, for the right procedure.”

Ochsner Health goes beyond the traditional one-committee value analysis structure and integrates its process of analysis into several standing service line councils, from orthopedic service line council, neurosurgery, general surgery,

and more. Thus, the value analysis process becomes a part of the company’s operations on a day-to-day basis. Involving clinicians in the value analysis process can help supply chain leaders to drive better outcomes, says Leger.

“When we’re looking to revise a process or bring in a new product, we infuse the value analysis process and then evaluate it to make sure we’re always supporting the quadruple aim that we’re focusing on,” said Leger. “We are not looking for the cheapest product, we are looking to initiate actions that are going to help us drive our outcomes and to provide great healthcare to all of our patients.”

“As supply chain leaders, we always challenge ourselves to explore how we can revamp processes, integrate new technology, and look at new practices and not just the products,” said Leger. “It’s not just the latest shiny new toy, but instead focused on quality, patient safety, efficiencies and how to help drive outcomes.”

Overcoming obstacles

One of the largest stress points for supply teams right now is the rising cost of healthcare, which, asserts Leger, “limits access, affordability, and availability of healthcare to all patients.”

“This is a challenge not just within the hospital, but it’s really a preventative as well as treatment obstacle, and we must consider how to mitigate the rising cost and be able to provide high quality care to all patients, no matter if they can afford care or not,” said Leger.

Considering recent industry-wide issues including the IV fluids shortage, fluctuating staffing levels, financial constraints, changing expenses, and more,

supply chain leaders must be flexible, able to pivot quickly, and resilient to tackle unforeseen difficulties and continue providing critical care and products to their patients.

“Within healthcare, day-to-day operations can be quite challenging, because there are always different curveballs that are thrown that can create different competing agenda items,” said Leger. “For emergent or evolving situations, we must manage our labor resources and have clinicians provide their input and feedback, while also being nimble and working around their busy schedules, whether that’s meeting with a surgeon early in the morning or late in the afternoon, depending on what their availability is.”

Clinical engagement in supply chain

To stay competitive in a dynamic and ever-changing industry, Ochsner Health considers the wide variety of different opportunities across the supply chain, consistently focusing on redesigning care to achieve better clinical outcomes. Going forward, the health system is looking at elevating patient experience

throughout the hospital, bringing patients new, emerging products.

Ochsner Health is currently exploring how dialysis care is traditionally delivered in the hospital setting to determine if there may be different technologies and practices to implement for the benefit of patients.

“As supply chain leaders, we are facilitating conversations around new types of technology for our clinicians so we can get the right key stakeholders around the table to help us make the right decisions,” said Leger.

“Better quality care and patient safety always trumps cost. It’s our responsibility as supply chain leaders to facilitate cost avoidance and benefit to minimize risk,” said Leger. “It may, at surface value, look like you’re adding cost on the front end, but when you look at the overall cost of care, it’s much better because you're providing higher quality care, reducing risk to the patients, and looking at the whole picture and not just the service value of one product.”

Leger says that clinical engagement across the supply chain is much higher now compared to pre-pandemic, especially having increased in the past two years, with health systems making encouraging leaps and bounds toward ongoing clinical collaboration.

“As a supply chain leader, I’m looking at creating the best of class OR inventory management processes,” said Leger. “It goes beyond a project or initiative and is truly about operational excellence, and impacts quality, patient safety, efficiency as well as cost. At Ochsner Health, we have done a really great job with the campaign of making sure that the clinicians and the end users have an input in all our decisions.”

Nattie Leger

Small Details, Big Impact

How pediatric hospitals are rethinking supply chain for better patient care.

The smallest of details matter in serving pediatric patients today – especially in supply chain. For example, while the color or design of a Band-Aid might not make a difference in the purchasing decision of an acute care hospital, for children’s hospitals it can be key.

“Years ago, the Mickey Mouse patterned Band-Aid was transformational for kids who didn’t want to wear a regular BandAid,” said Mike Brown, Vice President, Supply Chain & Environmental Services at Texas Children’s Hospital. “Simple idea … transformative on the patient care side.”

Indeed, pediatric patients often respond better to products specifically designed with their preferences in mind. “While a tan coban wrap may be more cost-effective, children are more likely to wear and tolerate wraps in colors like blue, green, or pink,” Brown said. “The same principle applies to casts and BandAids – patient comfort and compliance are essential, and these small changes can make a significant difference. We work

with our distributors to ensure these innovations reach the manufacturer and come to fruition as real product improvements.”

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting spoke with Brown; Ashley Wilson, Executive Director of Supply Chain at Children’s National; and Kristin Allen, Sr. Director, Sourcing, Member Engagement, Vizient about considerations and common challenge in procuring supplies for today’s leading pediatric hospitals.

What are the most common challenges you face when sourcing products or services for pediatric healthcare settings?

Brown: Not all manufacturers produce pediatric-sized products, which limits the

options available for essential items such as lumbar puncture trays, 10Fr dialysis catheters, 2.5Fr-3.5Fr PICC lines, urinary catheters, and feeding tubes. When shortages occur, there are even fewer manufacturers capable of providing pediatric substitutes, further complicating sourcing efforts.

Wilson: Pediatrics is a niche in and of itself, which creates different challenges for supply chain leaders. Pediatric supplies tend to be more expensive, for starters. They tend to be more expensive because we must carry products that are child-friendly and of varying sizes. Sometimes those require additional manufacturing or more pieces, which make them a little more expensive.

Additionally, it creates challenges because not a lot of suppliers make all the sizes we need. There is a smaller network of suppliers, and they have the opportunity to drive the price up. And when they go on to a backorder or have a supply

Mike Brown

Ashley Wilson

Kristin Allen

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disruption, it makes it really difficult for us to be able to find an alternative to that because there aren’t a lot that make these specialty sizes to begin with.

So, there is the price piece, but there’s another piece of managing more inventory and more shelf space than a typical acute care hospital. For example, an acute care facility may carry three sizes of blood pressure cuffs, while we carry 15. We have to manage that differently, understanding the space constraints that all areas may have, but being able to provide varying sizes because we may see patients from a NICU baby to an 18-year-old.

that make a 6 French catheter. So, when we can’t get that, we have to partner very closely with our clinicians to think of unique ways to try to solve patient care needs safely when you don’t have your ideal product.

What criteria do you prioritize when evaluating potential suppliers for pediatric healthcare products?

Allen: Guaranteed fill rates and assurance of availability are two top priorities for all our children’s hospitals. It’s important that we ensure the right product is available at the right price at the right place at the right time. Consistency and reliability in supply

Viewing our suppliers/vendors as partners – building contracts and terms that protect us is important – but building partnerships, inviting the vendor in and including them in solving problems, is so much more important.

You’re solving for sizes, but you’re also solving for very specific procedures or care models that only exist in pediatrics. For example, when we go to give an IV, we are prepping areas with products to help the children not feel that IV. You don’t do that in an adult facility. They’re not numbing your arm to do that. We’ve got to carry special products for that.

In implants, think about the size of the screws that we have to carry, because you go in and don’t know how large that kid’s leg is going to be once they’re in surgery. It makes it difficult.

Disruptions can be even more pronounced. I’ll use catheters as an example. They don’t make a 6 French size catheter. Adults are using 12, 18 and 24. We use 6. There are only two suppliers in the market

chain is critical. Many disruptions can directly impact patient care with the pediatric hospitals. Our clients must have confidence that their suppliers can meet the demands to provide uninterrupted, highquality care to their patients. Disruption in supply, even for something as simple as an infant-sized tracheostomy tube, can make a negative impact on clinical operations that you don’t see in adult hospitals.

Brown: Cost, quality and outcomes data are the key drivers historically, but the new consideration is resiliency. How resilient is the vendor’s supply chain overall? Where do they source their raw materials from? Is that supply chain resilient? Where do they produce the final product? What area of the world does that product come from?

Another consideration is logistics. Does it come by truck, boat, airplane, rail? What political and socio-economic factors come into play that could disrupt supply? Is it an area of the world susceptible to the new tariff chaos happening in Washington?

How do you collaborate with clinicians to ensure they have the right products and services to meet patient needs?

Brown: To address product backorders, shortages, and discontinuation challenges, we have partnered with other pediatric hospitals to amplify our collective voice and advocate for solutions that better meet the unique needs of our patient population. This partnership across the pediatric hospitals allows us to get feedback and input from clinicians across the industry. Making selections without considering this group would be an abject failure for any pediatric supply chain. We use the CHA/ Vizient workgroups, message boards, and forums to communicate across hospitals.

Wilson: I would reference the catheter example. Our value analysis team worked very closely on that problem. We didn’t have the ideal product, but they had to work together to bring in samples and we had to buy kits of things where they already had the catheter. While that may not drive efficiency, we were able to think through as many ways as possible to help the physicians get to that smallest size possible so that it was still safe for them to be able to practice the best way they could for these patients.

How do you ensure that the products and services you source are not only effective but also cost-efficient for pediatric healthcare providers?

Brown: Value analysis teams are the glue that sticks the supply chain together with

the providers. Having a highly engaged group of clinically trained RNs and sourcing professionals has defined the success of our supply chain at Texas Children’s Hospital. Finding and procuring products that are not only cost-efficient but also provide the best possible experience of the provider and the patient.

How have you seen the Vizient Pediatric Alliance collaborate with manufacturers to ensure pediatric product safety and compliance with regulations?

Brown: The main challenge is the uniqueness of certain pediatric items. In some cases, a single manufacturer may be the exclusive provider of a pediatric-sized product. If that item is discontinued due to low sales or other factors, clinicians must search for alternatives. For instance, a laboratory manufacturer discontinued a pediatric-sized lab tube, requiring the use of an adult-sized tube, which could require a larger blood volume – potentially leading to the need for a blood transfusion. The operating committee works with Vizient to ensure we are communicating these concerns back up through the supply chain to ensure vendors are compliant and not discontinuing the products we need the most!

What trends do you see emerging in pediatric healthcare procurement?

Allen: We’re seeing a continued focus on personalizing care, making sure it’s patient centered. There’s a huge movement toward more patient safety and patient advocacy in pediatrics, especially with mental health support. We’re also seeing an increased use of AI that helps the physician and parents plan for the child’s care. Some clinicians are starting to wear a smart watch to monitor the patient’s health.

Brown: Pediatric supplies are often the last to recover during shortages caused by raw material constraints or product delays. How do we prepare for that?

Viewing our suppliers/vendors as partners – building contracts and terms that protect us is important – but building partnerships, inviting the vendor in and including them in solving problems, is so much more important. Longer term agreements, product volume commitments, and using our committed program with Vizient helps ensure we can hedge against the instability and increasing variation we are seeing in the global market.

How do you measure the success of a sourcing initiative within the pediatric sector?

Brown: Though the key measures are related to product availability, pricing and rebate structure for the product, overall pricing is always the last and least important consideration. We examine quality and outcomes data for all products under assessment. Nursing is included at each step to verify product quality and how it fits with protocol –

then supply chain takes the final two or three products (if there is that many – sometimes its sole source) and works with the vendor on pricing.

What have been some recent initiatives of the Vizient Pediatric Alliance?

Allen: We’ve done a lot of great work with the purchased services and indirect spend categories. For example, freight management is one area we’ve focused on. Another category is coronary interventional and cardiology, which tend to be categories with a strong preference by physicians. And we are currently undergoing a spine initiative right now. So, we are having a lot of sourcing successes through the Vizient Pediatric Alliance. We also have a robust value analysis committee that consists of a great group of clinicians. As the Pediatric Alliance represents hospitals nationwide, this group of clinicians has the ability to come together and talk specifically about specialized pediatric products, their needs, their challenges, share best practices, and collaborate on how they’re each handling something.

How the alliance operates

The Vizient Pediatric Alliance has a very active committee structure that starts with the CHA Joint Operating Committee – these are C Suite level executives that help set direction and oversight for the Pediatric Alliance, Brown said. At the next level, VPs and SVPs, is the Executive Steering Committee – this is where overall strategy, interface with Vizient executives, and goal and direction setting happens. Finally, the sourcing action happens in the Operating Committee which is comprised of 16 hospital supply chain leaders at mostly the Director level. They drive the RFPs, product selection, and sourcing activities with support from Vizient’s Sourcing team.

Preparing for Tariffs: Key Steps Healthcare Leaders Can Take Now

Today, supply chains are confronting a new potential challenge through evolving tariff measures, which could include tariffs on healthcare products.

President Trump recently announced a comprehensive tariff policy with a baseline 10 percent tariff on all imported goods, effective April 5, 2025. On April 9, a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs was announced, extending through early July. The Trump Administration’s pause is intended to allow U.S. trading partners time to engage in reciprocal trade discussions, but for the healthcare industry, it prolongs a period of volatility and cost uncertainty.

The new tariff measures, paired with the rollback of de minimis exemptions, may introduce significant complexity and cost pressures, including for personal protective equipment, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, foodservice and capital projects.

For example:

 Enteral feeding syringes have no current known manufacturing outside of China and are currently subject to a 245 percent tariff. China continues to play an integral role in manufacturing medical devices, pharmaceutical ingredients and other technological components.

 Tariffs on imported goods could affect the prices and availability of the approximately 75 percent of U.S.marketed medical devices that are manufactured out of the country, and more specifically the 69 percent of U.S.-marketed devices that are

manufactured exclusively outside of the U.S.

 Pharmaceutical imports, which had been exempt from initial tariff rounds, are now under consideration.

While the Administration’s tariff policy is aimed at addressing trade imbalances and revitalizing domestic industries, tariffs could present added pressures to hospitals and health systems without a thoughtful, preemptive partnership for the procurement of supplies. Healthcare organizations are already burdened by product shortages, sustained inflation and persistently thin operating margins, all of which make any added import costs particularly difficult to absorb.

Healthcare organizations and leaders need a proactive strategy to help safeguard their supply chains and budgets. Here’s how to get ahead:

 Call for Supplier Transparency: Ask suppliers for detailed data: manufacturing country of origin, exposure risk, product attributes, and other relevant information and evidence. Additionally, advanced supply chain technology is utilizing machinelearning models and predictive analytics to forecast demand surges and product shortages far in advance – with over 90 percent accuracy. This type of solution helps identify at-risk supplies, understanding the level critical to operations and automatically serving up key, clinically appropriate substitution options.

 Identify Vulnerabilities: Leverage business intelligence and financial planning tools to assess risk and variability across your contracts. For example, Premier has developed

solutions to help organizations assess potential tariff-related impacts on both medical-surgical products and pharmaceuticals at the individual health system level. Pinpoint which agreements lack tariff protections to create a customized exposure map for your organization.

can offer guidance on expense reduction, inventory management, clinical engagement and operational improvement strategies. This includes opportunities to review contracts, eliminate redundancies, automate and scale processes, and drive value analysis best practices. From advisory

Your GPO should be committed to contracting with suppliers who value transparency and demonstrate manufacturing resiliency, redundancy and quality investments.

 Explore GPO Alternatives: If you are buying supplies under local agreements or other contracts without built-in tariff protections, evaluate whether an equivalent GPO-contracted product exists. Transitioning to GPO contracts may help provide insulation from potential price impacts. A GPO partner’s contract portfolio should be designed to deliver value, including long-term stability and protection for competitive pricing as well as resiliency measures. For instance, as part of a competitive bidding process, Premier receives data on where product and raw materials are sourced, safety stock requirements, data on quality records and rapid replenishment capabilities. Your GPO should be committed to contracting with suppliers who value transparency and demonstrate manufacturing resiliency, redundancy and quality investments.

 Engage with Expert Support: For projects large and small, supply chain optimization experts

to execution, a partner should support day-to-day operations to deliver scalable results that are tailored to organizations.

Taking these steps now can help healthcare organizations absorb less financial impact and navigate tariff-related disruption with greater confidence.

A strong, sustainable supply chain isn’t just good policy – it’s the foundation of high-quality, affordable and accessible healthcare for all Americans. Targeted and thoughtful tariffs on healthcare products could offer a chance to bolster supply resilience and ensure access to critical medical supplies. But they cannot live in a vacuum, lest they become just another cost without real impact. Premier believes that tariffs need to be put to work, funding innovation that ensures long-term stability and a stronger, more resilient U.S. supply chain. Contact Premier to learn more about our supply chain solutions – how they can help you navigate this complex environment and drive meaningful results for your organization.

HonorHealth’s Local Roots

How the Arizona IDN has grown its local spend, onboarded three hospitals and focused on utilization.

BY DANIEL BEAIRD

The Phoenix area is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country, adding over 600,000 people from 2010 to 2020 for a total of almost 5 million residents. And in the winter, snowbirds from the U.S. and Canada travel to Arizona and effectively double the population of cities like Scottsdale, where HonorHealth is headquartered.

Many of those Canadians like to get their medical procedures done in Arizona too, making HonorHealth, one of Arizona’s largest nonprofit health systems, very busy. The Arizona IDN fluctuates between $120 million and $160 million a year in capital projects.

Its vision is simple – to be the partner of choice in transforming healthcare for its communities, driven by its values and a commitment to delivering the best experiences and services to its patients and communities.

Supplier diversity program takes off

Mark Dozier and his strategic sourcing and engagement team at HonorHealth handle about $1.6 billion in spend annually. They launched their own supplier diversity program in 2022 with a clear objective to increase partnerships with Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) and keep some of its spend in state.

“We wanted to help local businesses, strengthen them and help the communities of Phoenix,” said Dozier. “So many diverse minority business enterprises are local. They’re in your state.”

Two years later, HonorHealth was named Large Corporation of the Year by the Healthcare Supplier Diversity Alliance and Owens & Minor for its efforts in advancing supplier diversity. It’s a crucial initiative toward inclusivity and community engagement in healthcare.

“I love our culture at Honor,” Dozier said. “Our slogan is honor above all, and integrity is so important in what we do. It’s a together mindset.”

HonorHealth has boosted its supplier diversity program and has grown its MBE contracting spend from $37 million to $70 million in just three years.

“We set up an easy way for diversifiers to interact with us on our website, to share their story and their catalog,” he said. “We didn’t hire additional staff for it. We’ve been chipping away at it organically and it’s been going well. We’re pleased with the progress we’ve made.”

HonorHealth benchmarks best practices for supplier diversity from other IDNs, increases its diverse spending each year and provides information to suppliers on supplier diversity when requested. A baseline was set in 2022 and a policy procedure rolled out in 2023.

“We didn’t want it to be a flash in the pan,” Dozier explained. “We want it to be significant 10 years from now and that’s ingrained in the processes.”

Dozier rolled out a similar program at a clinic in Minnesota for his previous employer, so he understood it needed to be methodical to make sure it’s sustainable. He attended a conference and workshop on supplier diversity held by Detroit-based Henry Ford Health, and also drew inspiration from Pittsburghbased UPMC’s program.

“You have to really understand it and believe in it,” he said. “Why is it important?

Why should we do it? How does it impact local vendors?”

He says for every $100 spent locally, $45 is recirculated locally. If that same $100 is spent with a national company, only $13 remains in state. “That statistic is a game changer,” he said. “Of course, with stents, hips and knees, you have to have all that to run the hospital and that’s from Fortune 500 companies. But there are a lot of products and services you can buy local and recirculate spend in your communities.”

It takes patience. Local vendors aren’t a machine like their larger counterparts. They don’t have the resources or legal processes to help them with the RFP journey. But that’s part of not rushing the process, Dozier says.

“Don’t try to do too much too soon but just keep chipping away,” he advised. “We’re adding diverse suppliers every year and growing the number of vendors. It just requires patience.”

Onboarding three Steward hospitals

HonorHealth recently purchased three hospitals and a free-standing ED in the Phoenix Valley from Steward, stemming from its bankruptcy. The hospitals come from a for-profit culture and HonorHealth is transitioning them to its contracts and systems.

“It will take months to get them acclimated to our clinical value analysis processes and how we make decisions on technology,” Dozier said. “We have different technology councils and capital process. They had to move to Epic, our electronic medical record, and that’s a massive change for these hospitals.”

There are over 100 HonorHealth employees bringing these hospitals up

to speed and Dozier says it’s been both stressful and exciting.

“Their old culture didn’t offer a lot of choice or input on product decisions,” he said. “So, on exam gloves, they got one option. On surgery gloves, one option. Drug balloons, one option. One hip and knee option.”

HonorHealth has more cardiology manufacturers, orthopedic vendors and usually more of everything. That makes physicians and clinicians excited.

works with frontline users in the OR, ED, Cardiology and Nursing. This relies on good data and HonorHealth internally benchmarks its 10 hospitals on product usage or service.

“We have three to five utilization projects this year,” Dozier explained. “We really think it’s a bigger bang for the buck than just price at the pump. If your preference cards are correct and up to date in surgery, the impact on reducing waste is big.”

Beyond the financials, HonorHealth’s Strategic Sourcing & Engagement team builds what Dozier calls stickiness through its fun squad and team-building events like socials, potluck lunches, pie contests, celebrating birthdays, and other competitions.

“At Honor, we’re more open to providing additional products of choice for our surgeons. That’s one way we get them to come work for us,” Dozier said. “We’re bringing the nurses and staff from Steward into our process. Our value analysis team meets monthly, and these three hospitals are excited to have a voice now, to be a part of the decision-making process.”

Utilization is the future

Part of that process is utilization. Dozier says it’s the future at HonorHealth and the key to change with so much focus on price.

“There’s a bigger opportunity with utilization but it takes more partnership,” he said. “You can have a double-digit impact, 10-12%, on your expenses.”

For price, supply chain just works with the vendor. But for utilization, it

But like most others in healthcare, staff turnover affects HonorHealth and that can hurt implementation time. Having an adequately trained staff in clinical and the capacity to work on utilization is a challenge.

“It’s extra time to think, look at the data, have meetings, come back with fresh data and show that we really want to partner with service lines on utilization,” Dozier said.

That’s where HonorHealth’s value analysis teams help. The peri-op value analysis team has 25 OR nurses on it, for example, and is a great resource. And HonorHealth asks major suppliers to help with utilization too.

“We talk to our top suppliers and ask how we can utilize their product per OR procedure, per OR room, and per patient bed. There are many denominators you can use to slice and dice,” he said. “How do we compare to other IDNs?”

Dozier says they ask that in quarterly business reviews, but manufacturers rarely have that information. And that’s information that HonorHealth would like to have. It would help to utilize products and have the right mix.

“We’re pushing for that information. They can blind it. They can say, here are three IDNs and here is their utilization usage of drug- eluting stents or whatever it is,” he said. “We’re going to keep knocking on that door until we get some manufacturers to work with us on that.”

Measuring

the team’s success and appreciation

Each value analysis team at HonorHealth has a financial target for the year and presents it to senior leadership. They present two times a year and Dozier thinks it’s important.

“They get to show their work, why it’s important, and they feel valued by our senior executives,” Dozier said.

HonorHealth’s total value scorecard tracks the department’s value to the organization, measuring savings from conversions, savings from new contracts and additional rebates. Last year, it marked $34 million on the total value scorecard.

Beyond the financials, HonorHealth’s Strategic Sourcing & Engagement team builds what Dozier calls stickiness through its fun squad and team-building events like socials, potluck lunches, pie contests, celebrating birthdays, and other competitions.

“When you have a great team, you want to keep them,” he said. “You want to make it more fun working together. Our Fun Squad’s activities keep our team looser, connected, and happier. The impact has been significant.”

Best Buy Health Banks on Hospital-at-Home Model

The consumer electronics retailer has found success in healthcare partnerships.

BY DANIEL BEAIRD

Best Buy Health and Mass General Brigham first collaborated in November 2023 to support a new model of healthcare delivery – Mass General Brigham’s Home Hospital, one of the largest acute home-based care models in the country. Research shows hospital-at-home programs have been successful.

A 2024 study assessed the outcomes of nearly 6,000 Americans nationwide who received care for a serious medical condition in their home instead of at a hospital. The findings validated the safety and effectiveness of receiving acute care

at home. Less than 1% of patients died and fewer than 7% had their care escalated into a 24-hour hospital stay, according to Mass General Brigham. Home hospitals admit patients for an acute condition that traditionally requires

a bed in either the ICU or a hospital ward. Those that enter the Mass General Brigham Home Hospital receive visits from a nurse or paramedic at least twice a day, continuous monitoring of vital signs, diagnostic testing when needed, access to therapeutics traditionally provided in a hospital, and 24-hour access to members of a care team for questions or concerns at the touch of a button from a tablet.

Current Health, Best Buy Health’s care at home platform, connects patients to nurses, paramedics and advanced practitioners, and Best Buy Health’s emergency response device called Lively Mobile Plus can detect falls and enable patients to call for help.

Model of success

Best Buy Health has found success with the hospital-at-home model when other retailers have pulled back their healthcare offerings. The Minnesota-based consumer electronics retailer relied on partnerships with health systems across the country to help push the model into new healthcare services and products.

Partnerships with Mass General Brigham, OSF Healthcare, Geisinger, Mount Sinai Health System and NYU Langone Health all stemmed from Best Buy’s $400 million acquisition of remote patient monitoring company Current

Health in 2021. Its partnership with Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health (now Advocate Health) connects it to one of the largest health systems in the country after Atrium established its hospital-at-home program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

These health systems connected with Best Buy Health to use the retailer’s technology for in-home care to help lessen emergency room visits, treat chronic conditions and remotely monitor patients. Its Current Health platform enables deep insights into patient health and supports provider experiences through continuous and intermittent monitoring.

It can provide real-time remote patient monitoring and care coordination using its clinical dashboard integrated with a health system’s EHR where providers receive alerts based on customizable parameters for common care scenarios and individual patient requirements. Its configurable clinical escalation pathways can help mitigate risk and reduce readmissions.

Expansion and benefits

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) passed the Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCaH) waiver in November 2020 due to the sudden demand for hospital beds during the COVID-19 pandemic. It allowed certain hospitals to treat patients with an inpatient level of care in their homes if those hospitals’ offerings met certain federally required parameters. The waiver suspended the requirement of a 24/7 on-site availability of a registered nurse and allowed hospitals to deliver care remotely.

CMS requires participating hospitals to report safety and care outcomes of

Current Health stats

 A 6.9% 30-day readmission rate at NYU Langone.

 $2.3 million in cost savings in its first year with the U.S. Military Health System.

 5,000 bed days saved at Wrightington, Wigan Leigh NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K.

home patients, and Mass General Brigham researchers found compelling evidence for the success of the model nationwide. Many patients reported a better experience at home due to reduced risk of infections, more independence, social determinants of health and discharge procedures.

Caregivers benefited too because hospital-at-home programs lighten their load. Health aides help patients go to the bathroom, bathe and eat so that job doesn’t go to a spouse, parent or child.

The AHCaH waiver has been extended multiple times and most recently through a continuing resolution passed by Congress, extending the program through Sept. 30, 2025.

Eligibility

Federal requirements direct patients to visit a brick-and-mortar hospital for evaluation before hospitalization at home. Evaluations can occur in emergency departments or for patients with planned surgeries or procedures.

The most common acute conditions for Mass General Brigham Home Hospital include:

 Respiratory including COPD, asthma, influenza, pneumonia and COVID-19.

 Cardiac, including heart failure, atrial fibrillation and hypertensive urgency.

 Endocrine, including severe hyperglycemia.

 Infections, including cellulitis, complicated urinary tract infections and other infections.

 Gastrointestinal, including inflammatory bowel disease flare ups, diverticulitis and pancreatitis.

 Bladder and kidneys, including chronic kidney disease and too little cortisol produced by the kidneys.

 Liver, including acute hepatitis and cirrhosis.

Patients must consent before joining the program. They can also request to return to a traditional hospital at any time. Mass General Brigham wants to move one of every 10 patients receiving inpatient care into a home-based environment.

This goal requires expanding its Home Hospital even further.

Advancing technology

To accomplish that goal, Mass General Brigham and Best Buy Health are developing a care orchestration platform set to go live in one of Mass General Brigham’s regions this spring with another region to go live this summer.

An app to coordinate logistics between technology, medical supplies and staffing can help drive hospital-at-home programs to deliver inpatient levels of treatment. If these logistics can be unified, the hospital-at-home model could be set to really take off.

Overcoming the Hidden Costs of Decentralized Educational Spending

Many health systems today struggle with the hidden costs of siloed operations and decentralized spending. Yet, breaking down silos in healthcare can lead to better decision-making, tighter budget oversight, and a reduction in unnecessary spending.

When spending is centralized, hospitals benefit from greater transparency through cross-functional collaboration, better departmental alignment, and improved budgetary controls.

One avenue that is often overlooked but can immediately improve a health

system’s bottom line is centralizing and optimizing spend on purchased services like continuing education for staff. These costs are usually managed locally, with departments handling their own specialty vendor contracts and invoices, and individual employees handling many of their

personal educational expenses. As a result, no one team or individual is accountable for all this spending, and purchases flow through procurement and accounting with limited oversight or coordination.

HPC International offers a solution, EducationManager, which centralizes the entire spend category for healthcare education and training expenditures, provides comprehensive tracking and reporting, and offers insights for informed decisionmaking. By centrally overseeing this area of purchasing, it gives HPC’s team visibility over all related spending. This, in turn, enables HPC’s team to eliminate duplication, reduce administrative burdens associated with approvals and payments, and negotiate volume discounts.

EducationManager has helped HPC’s healthcare partners simplify and centralize their education-related processes. Below are a few examples of how it’s made a difference:

From Individual Payments to Institutional Savings

of Nearly 50%

One healthcare organization needed to pay for professional memberships and certification exams for almost seventy of its healthcare IT professionals through a national association. In the past, these transactions had been processed individually in separate renewals and payments, scattered on different renewal dates throughout the year, and allocated to separate budget cost centers across its many hospital locations.

Take Control of Healthcare Education Costs

Hospital leaders typically reach out to HPC with similar challenges in managing healthcare education costs:

 Lack of Visibility – Inability to track education spending or identify overspending across the organization.

 Decentralized Spending – Siloed budgets and limited collaboration lead to price gaps and missed savings opportunities.

 No Standardized Governance – Overlapping policies cause inconsistent enforcement and confusion around education benefits.

 Lack of Expertise – Limited knowledge of educational resources and needs can lead to contract gaps, duplication, and inefficiencies.

The good news? HPC has proven solutions for each of these challenges.

EducationManager provides comprehensive tracking and reporting, offering insights for informed decision-making.

HPC centralizes education purchasing and payments, secures volume discounts and consistent pricing, and enforces organizational policies.

With a single, streamlined process, employees can easily access their benefits without confusion.

Backed by decades of industry expertise, HPC leverages the collective spend of health systems nationwide to negotiate better pricing and drive savings to your bottom line.

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With the EducationManager solution in place, however, HPC negotiated a discounted corporate group rate for all memberships and exam fees, achieving a combined 49.6% overall savings. Going forward, each of these annual memberships will be synced into the same renewal schedule, eliminating a lot of time and administrative work by consolidating all fees into a single invoice.

Centralization of Institutional Memberships Cuts Costs

HPC uncovered that a health system had multiple institutional memberships for several of its different hospital sites related to neurology, pulmonology, otolaryngology, and sleep medicine. Through HPC’s research, it discovered that each acute location renewed and negotiated these separate memberships at different times of the year with no internal collaboration or central oversight.

Upon implementing EducationManager, HPC consolidated these separate institutional memberships into one corporate group and negotiated a 10% discount overall. HPC also aligned renewal dates, streamlining the approval, invoicing, and payment process to reduce administrative burden.

Centralized Oversight Saves 90K and Prevents Costly Redundancy

HPC assisted another healthcare system in reviewing its library subscription resources before renewal deadlines. Through the evaluation process and collaboration with multiple department heads and leaders, HPC uncovered that the organization’s pharmacy

department had a duplicate subscription to the same drug resource already available as an institutional license through the medical library.

The result of not having HPC’s oversight until recently led this health system to waste nearly $500,000 on paying for this duplicate subscription for the past six years without anyone in the supply chain, accounting, or legal noticing. However, with HPC’s centralized oversight now in place, HPC immediately brought this duplication to light, saving the healthcare system about $90,000 per year moving forward.

Consolidated Book Purchasing Yields 12% Savings

HPC consolidated the ordering, negotiating, purchasing, invoicing, and shipping processes for a healthcare system’s fragmented departmental book orders. By becoming their single centralized source for all books and training products through the EducationManager solution, HPC simplified the procurement process, enhancing efficiency and reducing administrative burdens. At the same time, HPC leveraged its large volume of spend to secure lower pricing, resulting in 12.2% savings for the organization.

Enhanced Administrative Support and Efficiency

HPC’s EducationManager solution includes access to a customized online portal. This portal enables employees to submit education expenses, manage profiles, track requests, access free or institutional training resources they may be unaware of, and review company policies in one place. By handling the request, approval, and payment processes, HPC reduces paperwork and saves time for employees and the accounting department, allowing them to focus on higher-priority tasks.

Many top healthcare organizations, including industry leaders like Henry Ford Health and Franciscan Health, have already adopted this innovative approach to managing continuing education expenses. Partnering with a specialized provider like HPC International is considered a best practice for organizations struggling with decentralized processes and inconsistent spending policies. With deep expertise in healthcare education, HPC delivers the transparency, cost savings, aggregation, and administrative support healthcare systems need to manage this critical spend category more effectively.

Download case studies by scanning the QR code.

— Mark Welch, Senior Vice President, Novant Health

GPOs: Complete outsourcing solution or key tool in fiscal, operational arsenal?

BY R. DANA BARLOW

Healthcare provider organizations seem to harbor a love-hate relationship with the myriad group purchasing organizations (GPOs) that operate today.

Most healthcare organizations appreciate the concept of group purchasing, which began 115 years ago* as a useful tool known as “cooperative buying,” brought over to healthcare by a railroad magnate-turned-hospital executive. While the majority may approve of group purchasing as a concept, function and service, others debate how the variety of business models operating GPO services has developed and changed during the last century.

This dichotomy has fueled enduring interest in migrating from GPO to GPO, not unlike consumers switching mobile telephone providers for the best deals and technology. Yet the decision to change GPOs and convert all related operations, products and services should be done logically and soberly with as much researchbased forethought and discussion as possible. So insists a quartet of healthcare provider-based supply chain executives well-versed in GPO experience.

“It’s how you leverage [GPOs] and where you are on the continuum of maturity that matters,” said Tom Harvieux, Chief Supply Chain Officer, BJC HealthCare, St. Louis. “This is not an uncomplex area to discuss. Fifteen years ago, everyone thought the GPO was your strategy, and now the GPO is just a small part of your strategy. So that’s an evolution of the relationship. GPOs may still want to live in that world from 15 years ago with the larger health systems. But if you segment out health systems across the U.S., there are health systems that have more resources, particularly in the area of higher talent,

to do a lot of that work internally. They use GPOs completely differently than some of the critical access hospitals sitting there with one person in the materials department, so you’re seeing different strategies.”

Why change GPOs?

Experts logically point to the perceived cost savings from converting but also emphasize the seemingly counterintuitive cost generation to convert. But other related issues may motivate migration.

“In my conversations with others and in my own experience the most compelling reason continues to be a combination of cost reduction and ease of use,” noted Joe Colonna, Chief Supply Chain & Project Management Officer, Piedmont Healthcare, Atlanta. “How well the portfolio matches with the needs of the organization.”

Colonna cautions that the term cost reduction hinges on perceived or actual savings. “It depends on the level of due diligence that the customer has done,” he continued. “This due diligence applies to both the incumbent and the potential new GPO partner. How well are you actually using your current GPO and how well will you actually use the contracts and services with the new vendor?”

BJC’s Harvieux points to several drivers. “One, you sometimes have a different leader that comes in and has a relationship with a previous GPO that was a really good working relationship. The second is the organization has a cost-out initiative and they’re looking for a commitment of resources to help with that cost-out. Third would be that you had a bad experience with your [GPO]

partner, and you want to re-evaluate. I mean, that’s like any relationship where you might have a compelling reason to re-evaluate a relationship,” he said.

“Those are the primary reasons people typically look at, but I would say that No. 2 is the main reason – there’s a very large cost initiative and they’re asking for the GPO to give them additional resources to hit a target. The thing is, just like anything in life, if you don’t think you’re getting value, you can often test the market. Some people just want to test the market anyway,” he observed.

Conversion challenges

Converting GPOs may seem rather straightforward from a decision-making standpoint, flipping the switch can be onerous if no one completed and shared how the process will play out and what it will take as part of due diligence.

The industry embracing and implementing more automation doesn’t make the process much easier – in fact, just the opposite.

“The biggest challenge is in the data,” Parkland’s Bryant insisted. “When you move between GPOs there are a lot of nuisances in the data from the provider

“Anytime the clinical perception is that a change is only being made to ‘save’ money, it can be a challenge. This can be especially true if the perception is that the change is to an ‘inferior’ product or there is confusion around what is actually a ‘comparable’ device.

“The change of a GPO is usually a strategic decision based on a specific need or service,” said Pamela Bryant, senior vice president & Chief Supply Chain Officer, Parkland Health, Dallas. “GPOs acquire capabilities and firms that provide unique services to either improve the supply chain or support other strategic initiatives.”

Provider organizations benchmark and undertake due diligence to evaluate the value they are receiving from their GPO partner(s), according to Ryan Burke, vice president, Strategic Sourcing, Pandion Optimization Alliance, Rochester, New York. “A lack of customer service, limited resources and unresolved issues can negatively impact a GPO’s position with their customer,” he added.

organization to the previous GPO to the new GPO. Accurately assessing the opportunities plays a key role in the decisions to make a move. I think we help to reduce this stress point by taking the time to manage our data, and we utilize tools provided by the GPO to assess the accuracy of that data compared with market benchmarks,” she noted.

Piedmont’s Colonna points to the overarching task at hand – particularly who does what, when, where, why and how.

“I would say a lack of understanding of the actual work related to the conversion and the misperception that the GPO will do all the heavy lifting,” he said. All GPOs have very little understanding of how hospital operations are really impacted by the change. So, this falls to

the customer to navigate and move the change through the organization with minimum disruption to operations. In addition, you need to understand all the data and systems that will need to be updated – not just with-in the customers’ systems, but all of the business partners as well.”

Contract or product conversions if providers are required to switch manufacturers in certain product categories can be taxing, according to Pandion’s Burke, so gaining GPO assistance will help. “The use of a ‘tiger team’ – a team of specialists who work together for onboarding new customers – typically ensures that the provider will have a smooth transition,” he assured.

“Clinical engagement always is the most important thing because the stakeholders need to touch, feel, approve and make sure it’s clinically acceptable,” he noted. “And that’s a huge logistical task. Clinical engagement is always first and foremost.”

Gauging pain

Change any administrative, clinical, financial or operational procedure or process and there’s bound to be some pain experienced by executives and staff, GPO allegiance, membership and participation being no exception.

Clinical pain may be the most acute, supply chain executives argue.

“ The GPO price may mean different things to different people. For some people, it’s the final price; for other people, it’s the starting price. Fiscally, you have to find that balance.”

Harvieux warns healthcare provider organizations not to underestimate the “sheer work effort involved because you might have to do product conversions to get compliant with the portfolio, so you have to engage your clinical stakeholders and work with your current supplier. This involves a lot of data cleansing for the clinical services provided by your GPO that you would have to unwind.”

To work through this, “some people will negotiate in a GPO conversion to have them support that with resources,” he added.

Making a GPO conversion and requited product conversions to satisfy contractual obligations without clinical input can add additional wrinkles to the process, according to Harvieux.

“Anytime the clinical perception is that a change is only being made to ‘save’ money, it can be a challenge,” Colonna noted. “This can be especially true if the perception is that the change is to an ‘inferior’ product or there is confusion around what is actually a ‘comparable’ device. While this may be already happening, as part of the customers’ ongoing cost management work, with a GPO change, there comes a large volume of change, across multiple devices and vendors, in a relatively short period of time.”

Through it all, Bryant urges supply chain to remember one caveat.

“Any required product changes to mitigate you need to have value analysis engaged,” she insisted.

“The clinical is really around the data submissions to the clinical tools and reconciling that with your systems, keeping it current,” Harvieux said. “Having good data to leverage for performance of clinical services brings a lot of value for organizations to derive from their GPO or other clinical services. For example, we use clinical benchmarking with peers to target improvement opportunities. You want the data to be clean and to be able to get the right information, not misleading information.

“One of the clinical benefits is that we’re collectively sharing benchmarking information against each other, and through that we all get better together,” Harvieux continued. “But the challenge is, like all things, people have to believe in the data for that to happen. The data has to be good, and there’s just a lot of it when you’re talking about 3,000 different health systems submitting data.”

Fiscal pain must be heeded as well. For Colonna, fiscal issues involve “validating and verifying, the actual cost reduction across the conversion timeline and beyond.”

Bryant agrees, spotlighting the “opportunity to reduce cost, which is mitigated with good data,” she indicated. “I believe the [biggest] pain point is getting accurate data in the system to support the other operations, such as strategic sourcing and demand planning.”

Data quality is key, according to Harvieux, so you don’t “end up chasing ghosts. For example, the price benchmarking data says that we may have a million-dollar opportunity on this contract. When you dig in deeper you find out that a data error created a false opportunity. You could say the same thing for clinical quality because the data submitted can be more complex.

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“Data and operational standards certainly make a difference on the supply chain side,” he continued. “The clinical data can be much more diverse and robust. It’s not like product data. It may involve a unit of measure, but how do you define a length of stay? How do you define a patient encounter or operating room surgical case time? I’d be surprised if most health systems clearly defined it within their own organization.”

Still, the fiscal pain depends on where a hospital or integrated delivery network (IDN) are on the maturity continuum, according to Harvieux. “The GPO price may mean different things to different people,” he said. “For some people, it’s the final price; for other people, it’s the starting price. Fiscally, you have to find that balance. For example, a large organization may only use the GPO pricing for 15% of their contracts, but they use the GPO contracts for a portion of the terms because there’s efficiency and that comes down to how best to [manage] operational resources. But if you’re a small organization you’re getting more fiscal value out of a GPO because you don’t have the resources to do the work. The fiscal value is really tied to the scale of the organization because if I’m running a critical access hospital, I don’t have the resources to hire 15 people to negotiate all the contracts. Our vantage point is the starting point, so we’re going to negotiate from that point and that’s how we’re going to get market leading value.

“ You need strong project management preplanning and candid conversations around resources and the short- and long-term impact of the changes with clearly defined roles and accountability. Separate the marketing and sales from the facts of the conversion.”

“The GPO kind of sets the table, and then how you move out from there is really up to the organization’s maturity,” he added.

Operational pain links the chain.

“This may call for more resources than you have probably planned on using, end-user engagement through the entire process, data and systems that will need to be fully updated to avoid downstream issues, such as match exceptions, delayed orders, product confusion,” Colonna explained. “You need strong project management pre-planning and candid conversations around resources and the short- and long-term impact of the changes with clearly defined roles and accountability. Separate the marketing and sales from the facts of the conversion.”

Hospitals and IDNs often look to tonnage in the operational arena, according to Harvieux. “For example, are we going to go and put resources towards a commodity product that we’re best buying in volume through a GPO contract, specifically pharmacy where operationally we will use terms in the GPO agreement because we don’t

want to renegotiate them? It means we don’t put the resources toward negotiating terms frivolously that are already in the GPO agreement. We’d rather use what the GPO already negotiated and don’t need to renegotiate those, so we can put that energy toward something else. That’s where we’re getting a return on investment. That makes sense for us and suppliers.”

Overcoming operational pain just takes work, Harvieux urges. “It’s just getting aligned if you’re going to use the GPO or if you’re going to use any other partner. You need to get aligned with them on data quality, how you’re going to manage the data, how you’re going to manage the relationship, where you expect to extract value from each of those, and then you collaborate to improve the work. But I would say it depends on your style. Everyone has a different style. Some people are arm’s-length, and some people are partners. You collaborate with people, and you can move the work forward. Some people are arm’s-length in a relationship. And that’s fine. You just have to decide what you want to do.”

* William Van Schoonhoven Thorne (1865-1920), founded the Hospital Bureau of Standards & Supplies Inc., New York, in March 1910. Thorne hailed from the railroad industry, serving in executive roles for a variety of railroad companies, including director of purchases at Union Pacific. He also served as Treasurer and Member of the Board of Managers of New York’s Presbyterian Hospital, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Member of the Board of Governors, The Women’s Hospital, New York, and Member of the Board of Directors of the Manhattan Maternity and Dispensary, from 1896 until his death in February 1920. Bellwether League Foundation inducted Thorne into the Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership Hall of Fame in 2017.

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What motivates, obviates GPO conversions

Hospitals, other healthcare organizations and integrated delivery networks (IDNs) face clinical, financial and operational pressure daily that can spark a significant directional change impacting supply chain.

To change group purchasing organization (GPO) affiliation/ membership or not to change, that may be the question to upend any supply chain hamlet.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting reached out to a quartet of supply chain executives to learn what may motivate a GPO conversion and what may dissuade such a decision.

Motivations to convert

“Will you be able to maximize the savings potential of the GPO contract portfolio? Does the GPO align with your clinical and operational goals? Will the GPO bring new ideas or needed resources to help you achieve those goals?”

Joe Colonna, Chief Supply Chain & Project Management Officer, Piedmont Healthcare, Atlanta

“Your motivations would be, am I getting the most out of my current relationship? And that’s really what it comes down to. And there are different ways to do that. You can do market basket assessments. You can base off your benchmarking to whatever tool you want – clinical quality, the quality of the resources that someone offers vs. somebody else. Those are all judgment calls that each organization needs to make. There’s no perfect answer. The idea behind it is that if I can get a number of folks to ask, you’ll know their thinking, then they’ll be able to see what other people are doing and make their own assessments. It’s like, is the juice worth the squeeze? Are you going to go through a year-long conversion of products

and end up in the same place? That’s just the relative work effort given everything else going on. If you’re going through a merger, you might go through a GPO conversion because the merger might force you to do it, but that would be a really big disruption. You may be going through a technology change. You just have to understand where you are in your relationship.”

Tom Harvieux, Chief Supply Chain Officer, BJC HealthCare, St. Louis

“I think when you don’t see the service level you need, it starts some direct conversations, which should include what new services/opportunities are you bringing to the organization.”

Pamela Bryant, Senior Vice President & Chief Supply Chain Officer, Parkland Health, Dallas

“What is the provider looking for in their GPO? Autonomy vs. strict compliance to awarded vendors? Each GPO is a little different, but all aim to bring value to their customers.”

Ryan Burke, Vice President, Strategic Sourcing, Pandion Optimization Alliance, Rochester, NY

Resistance to conversion

COLONNA: “Savings alone may not be a good reason to change. Are you fully engaging and taking full advantage of the current GPO portfolio? If not, why not? Is it the GPO or is your organization challenged to make change? Just changing GPOs will not change the culture of your organization.”

HARVIEUX: “I’m not saying that this is a hard and fast rule, but there are things that we only do every 10 or 15 years, such as looking at your pharmacy distribution, looking at your GPO relationship, or changing your ERP or your ERP platform. All these

things are major, major, major things, and you don’t do them without serious consideration. I mean, you’ll see someone change every five years, but typically they’re more established longer-term relationships. What you want to do is optimize the relationship, and once you optimize, you really don’t want to go back to square zero and start over if you don’t have to.

“It’s resource intensive, I would say that. But again, back to everything from clinical engagement, if we went from GPO 1 to GPO 2, we might have to convert 20% of the stuff the nurses use on the floor. And we might get little or no value in that. I

don’t know what we would get out of it, but you have to do it to be compliant with a larger relationship.”

BRYANT: “Never convert on a projected savings. All GPOs are so close in the commodity space that the savings is never as large as you think nor is it sustainable.”

BURKE: “If the provider is maximizing their relationship with the GPO and continues to see cost savings, customer service, and value … keep leveraging your GPO!”

Managing expectations molds provider decisions about GPOs

Group purchasing organizations offer more than just the traditional GPO functions of contracting for manufacturing, distribution and other supply chain services.

Contemporary GPOs have expanded into offering a variety of other services, including benchmarking, data management, labor and workflow consulting, sustainability, technology consulting and value analysis to the point that GPOs might be called “healthcare services organizations” or HSOs today, or how 100-year-old Pandion Optimization Alliance brands itself as a “business development service” (BDS). (See: “Revisiting a cooperative buying centenarian in the group purchasing era” in this issue)

So, when healthcare provider organizations look to switch GPOs, they must do their due diligence to ensure that their baseline and routine expectations are realistic or simply outlandish.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting recruited a quartet of supply chain executives to illuminate the differences.

Great expectations

“Many GPOs now offer consulting, data and technology solutions. However, they are more often than not still judged by the

perception of the value they bring to cost reduction activities and how they compare to other GPOs in those same activities. GPO change often comes when the perception is that the ‘savings’ is going to be better and/or easier with another GPO. Having said that, many organizations do not have a great handle on the

actual value that their current GPO is or could bring to their cost savings initiatives. Before considering a change, I would do a critical evaluation of your current GPO usage.”

Joe Colonna, Chief Supply Chain & Project Management Officer, Piedmont Healthcare, Atlanta

“A broad portfolio of market-competitive contract options needs to be available. GPOs often serve as an aggregate so, for example, we’re looking at resilience, we’re working to establish supplier expectations what we work to align on with our GPO. I would look at them for what aggregates well, services and valueadds that they’re providing in the market.

“The other [expectations] would be the ancillary tools that they offer, whether it be clinical benchmarking data, any other benchmarking services, data cleansing, labor and workforce, etc. With all that assistance they offer you likely will be asking – what are the value-adds? Are the services that they offer market-leading? That’s something that you would always consider.”

Tom Harvieux, Chief Supply Chain Officer, BJC HealthCare, St. Louis

“GPOs should not be status quo. There should be constant improvements and improvement opportunities from the GPO to the provider organization. If that is not the case, other conversations should begin.”

Pamela Bryant, Senior Vice President & Chief Supply Chain Officer, Parkland Health, Dallas

“Savings and service are fundamental for any GPO. Without them, providers will start questioning their value and look elsewhere.”

Ryan Burke, Vice President, Strategic Sourcing, Pandion Optimization Alliance, Rochester, New York

You want WHAT?

COLONNA: “I think some organizations have an unrealistic expectation of what a GPO will and will not be able to do for them. GPOs can be a great partner and can help you to achieve your goals, but you still have to do the hard work. You must have a clear strategy and path to execution. The GPO has a role, but the

GPO is a tool, not a solution. As the old quote goes, ‘It is a poor carpenter that blames his tools.’”

HARVIEUX: “One of the most unrealistic expectations would be to think that I can change GPOs without having to change anything in the health system to get significant value. I just want to change who I’m working with and that’s going to actually drive value. It may drive some value, but if you use the act of moving to a different GPO you have to commit to making the changes to get the value from that change.

“I would say it this way: If we’re going to go from GPO 1 to GPO 2, your decision must be based on the market basket assessment completed and contingent on changing 20% of your products to new contracts to get the value. You need to be honest with yourself, is your organization willing to make that change needed? The GPO can only help you to the extent you’re willing to make the needed changes.

“This is particularly true of presentations to hospital executive teams that promise large savings opportunities without gaining real organization buy-in to make the necessary changes to deliver the desired value.

“With change comes value typically because like everything in the world, the people that have the business don’t want to give up a lot of value, and the people that have the most to gain by getting the business are the ones that are willing to give the most value. That’s all we’re really doing here. Whether it’s a GPO or whether it’s work being done by a hospital, people are hungry when they don’t have the business and they’re not as hungry when they have the business.”

BRYANT: “I think we believe the GPO has direct control over what the manufacturer does, and when something happens that negatively impacts us, we blame the GPO and want to change if it appears another GPO was not impacted to the extent our GPO was.”

BURKE: “Your GPO can do it all. While many GPOs cover a broad range of categories and industries, no one GPO has every answer that a potential buyer is looking to solve. Provider organizations should work closely with their GPO and ask for transparency when the GPO will not be able to provide the most value.”

Revisiting a cooperative buying centenarian in the group purchasing era

BY R. DANA BARLOW

Few group purchasing organizations (GPOs) meet and surpass the century mark in their development and growth. In fact, 100 years ago, the term GPO didn’t exist. These companies were colloquially called “cooperative buying services.” Of the small number that existed and operated back then, most were committees, departments or divisions within state hospital associations. Private companies engaged in cooperative buying could be counted on one hand. Two, tops.

Give Rochester, N.Y.-based Pandion Optimization Alliance a hand. They celebrate their centennial this year as something more than just a GPO. Pandion embraces the term, “business development service,” to support the clinical operations of delivering patient care.

Pandion traces its roots back to 1925 when it began as a rural hospital project that developed and expanded during the next two decades to become the Central Purchasing Committee under The Rochester Regional Hospital Council in 1946. Operations and services continued to grow such that the company established its new brand as RRHA Joint Ventures Corp. in 1982. A dozen years later, the company created Seagate Alliance and aligned itself with American Healthcare Systems, one of the heritage GPOs that later formed Premier Inc.

When Travis Heider joined the company in 2016 as president and CEO, Seagate Alliance managed $236 million in annual purchasing volume of its member facilities. Heider also oversaw the company rebranding to Pandion in 2017. Last year, through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, Pandion reached $1.9 billion in annual purchasing volume. The company strives to push its annual purchasing volume to $3 billion by 2027.

“What makes Pandion’s centennial particularly meaningful is that our success is intrinsically tied to our customers’ success,” Heider said in a press release. “Every cost savings we’ve negotiated, every partnership we’ve forged, and every innovation we’ve introduced has been in service of strengthening our customers’ bottom lines. This celebration is as much about their achievements as it is about ours.

“A century ago, our founders recognized that by bringing organizations together, we could create something extraordinary,” he added in the statement. “Today, that vision has grown into a nationwide alliance that continues to prove that unified power yields remarkable results. As we begin our next century, we’re more committed than ever to relentlessly pursuing value for our customers.”

Heider expressed optimism as he predicted a healthy future for Pandion and its growing membership base.

“The concept of collective strength surpassing any singular entity is timeless and foundational to Pandion’s success,” Heider told The Journal of Healthcare Contracting. “We have strategically diversified our business to serve customers across the full continuum of care, recognizing that more healthcare delivery will occur beyond hospital walls. With over 40,000 customer sites nationwide, we continue expanding our reach. Additionally, our growth in the non-healthcare sector has been remarkable, as businesses historically unfamiliar with the GPO model increasingly recognize the value of our buying power – often expressing disbelief that ‘this seems too good to be true.’

“Looking ahead, Pandion is positioning itself for the future by investing in digital health,” Heider continued. “AI, remote patient monitoring, digital therapeutics, and telemedicine are set to shape healthcare’s next era, and we’ve committed resources to ensure we remain at the forefront. Our investment in a digital health platform helps identify top-tier companies for

Travis Heider Jeanie Smith Karen Yacono

Another key challenge we overcame was to maintain the ability to continue offering equity positions in Pandion as a key differentiator in this challenging marketplace

contracting, allowing us to deliver innovative solutions to our customers. Simultaneously, we continue enhancing back-office technology – leveraging AI and traditional tools – to maximize customer savings, efficiency, and opportunities. By continuously evolving and expanding, Pandion is well-equipped to thrive in the next 100 years.”

Two of Pandion’s senior leaders, Karen A. Yacono, executive vice president and CFO, and Jeanie Smith, COO, represent two of the longest-tenured employees at 31 years and counting. Smith and Yacono agreed to share their memories of Pandion’s journey from the early healthcare reform years of the mid1990s to today with JHC

JHC: Both of you have been with what is now called Pandion 31 years – or roughly one-third of its lifetime! That has you starting in 1994 on the eve of the Clinton Administration’s healthcare reform initiative. Aside from RRHA Joint Ventures Corp. rebranding as Seagate Alliance when you aligned with American Healthcare Systems (AmHS), itself one of three forerunners to Premier Inc., what do you recall as key milestones back then?

SMITH: There was a lot of concern from our members about whether to go with the bigger GPOs at all and our ability to maintain our identity and our committed volume concept. The committed volume concept of contracting was changing. The hospitals were changing their identity as well through either closures or growth through mergers and acquisitions. At this time, the national GPOs were recognizing that total system commitment to one manufacturer wasn’t as doable and needed more flexibility and options via multi-sourced agreements in several categories. RRHA Joint Ventures was too small to offer best-in-class pricing while allowing multi-manufacturers. Pre-commitment ‘to one’ was the term RRHA JVC used to work by but that was getting tougher to have some folks agree to.

Ultimately, our owners had to complete their due diligence to ensure our GPO remained competitive.

After much thought and analysis, AmHS won the favor over the other national GPOs due to their flexibility with the way our committed volume processes worked and had an equity offering in their company. About one-third of our contract pricing was better than AmHS and about a third was the same and the other one-third was better pricing with AmHS.

YACONO: Key milestones for RRHA/JVC include the detailed selection process of a national GPO partner, obtaining Board approval to join a national GPO partner, and the roll-out of the national GPO program. This involved significant education for our Board Members and the RRHA/JVC membership in general. Internally, a separate company (Seagate) was established specifically for the national GPO partnership. In 1994, Seagate was one of 49 owners in AmHS. AmHS later merged with SunHealth to form Premier.

At that time, RRHA/JVC’s membership consisted primarily of hospitals in a nine-county region of Upstate New York. Each hospital operated independently, as there were no healthcare systems yet. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, hospitals began forming health systems. In early 2000, one of the largest members, The Genesee Hospital, closed, which significantly impacted the company. It became challenging to maintain core membership as systems developed and competition increased. As a result, membership was expanded to non-acute facilities and other classes of trade.

JHC: How were contracting elements, processes, and trends back then different from the way they are now?

Why do you see the changes as progress?

SMITH: Due to our tremendous growth in various market segments, it has become more difficult to drive pre-committed volume like we had previously. In those days, our members would

work closely with our sourcing team to include very specific [key performance indicators], products and vendors as a small tight knit group and sign pre-commitment forms that would not allow for ‘an out’ if the pricing was equal or better to what they could get on their own. The rules were tight. The awards were sole source. I see a mix in terms of progress. It was easier to drive precommitment and as a result, best pricing with the smaller groups, but the power of national GPOs has driven significant savings on a broader product portfolio through several versus one manufacturer or supplier. RRHA JVC was ahead of the curve with its hands-on, proactive approach. However, we did not have the data or infrastructure for the hospitals’ needs, especially as they turned into systems. Data and access to it became more critical for sales/service and contract growth. We did not have their purchasing data at our fingertips that was easily manipulable. Pharmacy contract savings were the largest component to the national GPOs strength.

JHC: What were some of the key challenges within the last three decades that Pandion has overcome?

YACONO: Pandion has faced numerous challenges, such as hospital consolidations into healthcare systems, growing competition from other GPOs, pressure to secure top-tier pricing, vendor mergers and compliance rates. Changes in state and federal healthcare policies and reimbursement have also posed difficulties for our members and Pandion. These issues continue today.

SMITH: Mergers, acquisitions, and closures of our larger hospital owners. However, Pandion has been able to adapt and adjust swiftly to ensure not only maintaining a strong position in the marketplace, but being open to significant growth of approximately 40,000 Members outside of the acute care market. Also, we have implemented a modernized system to capture data we didn’t have access to. Another key challenge we overcame was to maintain the ability to continue offering equity positions in Pandion as a key differentiator in this challenging marketplace.

Pandion Members still have access to a niche set of best-inclass contracts on our own paper. Our equity partners and largest members still stand with us when going out to bid and/or RFP for key categories that are best done through our committees.

JHC: How might you classify those challenges as different than what the organization might have endured through the prior six decades – from a Rochester rural hospital project in 1925 to the Central Purchasing Committee of The Rochester Regional Hospital Council in 1946 to RRHA Joint Ventures Corp. in 1982 to Seagate Alliance in 1994?

YACONO: Over the past 60 years, healthcare and GPOs have adapted to political, economic and technological changes. I feel the general principles of the Central Purchasing Committee of The Rochester Regional Hospital Council remain the same as they do for Pandion today; using the collective power of the membership to increase buying power and provide savings to the membership. Challenges affecting the bottom line persist from then to now.

SMITH: Back then, it was much smaller both geographically and the dollar volume running through the GPO – very few millions in total spend – and now Pandion is national with close to $2 billion in spend. The pre-committed volume worked extremely well back then because the program was very localized and very cooperative. The Central Purchasing Committee met monthly or more to proactively prep the bids, KPIs and qualified products/vendors. I am sure it was challenged to push hospital peers as much as possible to move from one clinical preference item to another in three years or less.

However, to survive in the long term due to the market dynamics changing, growth was a prerequisite. Joining forces with a larger, more national GPO was the way to do it. AmHS was a committed group (similar in philosophy) and allowed Seagate to take equity in it. Maintaining proactive account management and the proactive committee structure at the time of the AmHS partnership was paramount to safeguarding ongoing buy-in. We continued to ensure there was an equity partner chairman of each key committee (e.g., pharmacy, laboratory, food, materials management) to ensure confidence in the process. This was also of utmost importance to drive more volume and thus value for the owners.

Gaining usable data from our new national GPO partner became a requirement to not only analyze where the additional national contract tier savings were to be found but to maximize savings on our own contract paper as well.

Six Things You Might Not Know About the Tariff Issue

BY ELIZABETH HILLA

Many healthcare industry leaders say the uncertainty caused by tariffs now rivals the disruptions experienced during the pandemic. While the news changes on a daily basis, there are a few underlying points likely to remain the same.

Medical manufacturers are boosting resilience by moving out of China. A key lesson from the pandemic was that the resilience of the medical supply chain requires sourcing products from a variety of domestic, nearshore and global sources. HIDA surveyed medical manufacturers in February 2025 and found that 88% of respondents had seen manufacturing move out of China. Medical manufacturing is moving to locations in Southeast Asia, nearshore locations like Mexico, and reshoring to the United States. That said, manufacturing locations are primarily driven by economic factors, such as access to raw materials and labor. China’s large working-age population of 773 million – more than twice that of the U.S., Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia combined – means that China will be a major source of medical product manufacturing for the foreseeable future.

Tariffs are paid in the United States by American companies. Any tariff due is paid by the U.S. company that is the importer of record, not the exporting country. Products are manufactured in locations around the globe and shipped to the United States. At the port of entry, U.S. Customs determines if the product is subject to tariffs. Once the tariff is paid by the U.S. importer, the goods are cleared into the United States for distribution.

Tariffs are cumulative. A variety of tariffs are levied on medical products from a variety of legal authorities. Some are pre-existing tariffs on unfair trade practices, some are emergency tariffs levied to restrict the flow of fentanyl,

and a third category consists of reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs levied by President Trump on April 2. The April tariffs were paused through early July and China tariffs were modified on May 12. These tariffs are cumulative – or “stackable.” Each tariff stacks on top of the other to create a large aggregate tariff. For example, medical products such as syringes, needles, and medical gloves imported from China are subject to three different tariffs, with cumulative rates at one point as high as 245%.

Narrow margins make tariffs difficult to absorb. Every stakeholder across the continuum of care faces financial challenges and shrinking margins. The median operating margins for health systems in the United States hover between 1% to 2%. For publicly-traded healthcare distributors, the figure is about 3%. The tariffs under consideration are many orders of magnitude larger than the margins on which we operate.

Distributors can help providers with tariffs. Distributors and GPOs are working to help their customers respond to tariffs, identifying alternative sources for products when they are available and working to mitigate costs through supply chain efficiencies.

Tariffs are HIDA’s top priority in government affairs. Our priorities are to promote resilience by ensuring product availability, and encourage tariff relief for critical medical products. HIDA continues to advocate on behalf of the medical supply chain with the Trump administration and Congress.

By Elizabeth Hilla

Expanding the care continuum in non-acute distribution to create efficiencies and supply chain resiliency for health systems

McKesson helps providers navigate all care sites, aggregate spend

As patients shift how they seek and receive care, hospital volumes have declined, and lower cost, more convenient settings have been enabled by new technology and investments.

Enter the connected health system.

Moving beyond the hospital, more health systems are connecting non-acute sites through acquisitions and partnerships. But expanding into new care settings like urgent care, primary care, home health, ASCs and other sites is challenging. Incorporating them into a health system’s technology platform and procedures is time consuming and burdensome.

This is where McKesson helps its provider customers manage their non-acute distribution strategies and create efficiencies and resiliency.

Getting the product where it’s needed

“Our value starts with operational excellence and delivering the product to the provider’s point of care with the unit of measure that’s required to mitigate expired product or product that sits on a shelf,” said Deborah Haywood, Vice President of Health Systems for McKesson Medical-Surgical.

It’s also making sure formulary is maximized so health systems can aggregate their spend.

McKesson provides that through the care continuum regardless of setting,

whether it’s a low unit of measure, a single box to a patient’s home or a case to a physician’s office, urgent care or pharmacy. It drives efficiencies in the non-acute space through different types of distribution services.

“It’s about streamlining the product and helping drive contract adherence,” Haywood said. “Procurement officers want distributors to help maximize their next tier with GPO and contract adherence while maximizing their contract spend.”

and helps customers know the formulary they’ve been buying and how much has been delivered to each site so they can have a business continuity plan in place.”

If their systems are down, they can still depend on McKesson to deliver the products they’ve previously ordered so they can treat their patients and mitigate the impact to the Health Systems revenue. They can also see the type of product they’ve purchased previously and its country of origin, so they know exactly where it comes from.

“ We’re not just a private label organization. We offer choice, and we truly believe that the care continuum requires it.”

Driving

success in a fragmented market

McKesson’s SupplyManagerSM tool offers system connectivity, customized reporting and value-added services. This helps integrate and connect with procurement, ERP or practice management systems. It generates accounting, expense and material usage reports and it manages compliance, connects with customer loyalty programs and accesses promotions.

“The non-acute space is fragmented with various provider points of care,” Haywood said. “The automation of our SupplyManagerSM tool provides resiliency in the face of threats like cyberattacks

Manufacturers that can’t keep their country of origin updated can’t work with McKesson, according to Haywood, because McKesson requires high value from its manufacturer partners to provide as much information as possible about the product to our customers.

“We’re not just a private label organization,” she said. “We offer choice, and we truly believe that the care continuum requires it. Some patients have requirements that need a preferred branded product, and we want to meet the needs of our customers so they can meet the needs of their patients.”

Tariffs Put Pressure on U.S. Healthcare Supply Chain

Tariff impact and uncertainty is a growing crisis for U.S. healthcare providers, industry collaborative says.

In the vast and complex landscape of the U.S. healthcare system, a new vulnerability has surfaced – one that could disrupt and increase uncertainty in the global supply chain. For years, hospitals and healthcare providers have relied upon a complex and global system of supply chains that deliver essential medical goods to their doors. While Tier 1 suppliers are visible, what lay beyond – where critical processing steps are performed, where subcomponents are manufactured – are equally integral. This lack of visibility increases risk.

Disruptions to these supply chains have grown increasingly concerning, especially as the healthcare industry grapples with its deep dependencies on China, according to the Healthcare Industry Resilience Collaborative (HIRC). “From active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to personal protective equipment and critical medical devices, a significant portion of the U.S. healthcare lifeline runs through Chinese manufacturing facilities,” HIRC said.

Now, with escalating tariffs between the U.S. and China, and possible global tariffs on pharmaceuticals and medical device inputs, HIRC members believe that lifeline is under threat. Uncertainty looms over whether the added costs will apply only to finished goods or also to the subcomponents that cross borders multiple times before becoming a usable product. The potential for cumulative tariffs raises alarm bells – not just about pricing, but about availability itself.

“Healthcare systems across the country are growing more anxious, particularly in the face of rising geopolitical tensions,” HIRC told the Journal of Healthcare Contracting. “With no clear answers on how tariffs will be implemented, many providers are scrambling to assess their exposure. They’re reaching out to suppliers, requesting country-of-origin data in hopes of mapping the true risk. Yet this information, at best, offers only an indirect estimate.”

Behind the scenes, healthcare trading partners are poring over their contracts, asking difficult questions: Would tariffs trigger force majeure clauses? Can current price guarantees still hold?

The financial stakes are high. Nearly half of U.S. hospitals already operate at a negative or near-zero margin, HIRC noted. The system simply does not have the cushion to absorb significant cost increases.

“And amid this growing pressure, another unknown lingers – how, or if, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will adjust reimbursement rates to reflect these surging supply costs,” HIRC said. “For now, there is little clarity, only a shared urgency among providers to brace for impact in a global system where disruption feels less like an ‘if,’ and more like a ‘when.’”

The tariff situation is changing rapidly, emphasizing the need for close monitoring and enterprise-wide scenario planning. The healthcare industry, both hospitals and suppliers, need to lean in to face these pressures together, HIRC advised.

Suppliers who have committed to understanding their resiliency improvements through the extensive diagnostic offered by the HIRC Resiliency Badging program, are better able to predict, prevent, and recover from disruption. Resiliency will

be the key differentiator for companies who can navigate this uncertain economic and policy environment.

Pressure mounting

The level of tariff pressure facing U.S. companies has not been seen since the 1930s. During a recent poll of HIRC members, nearly half anticipate organizational annual cost increases of $50M or more. Half of respondents believe tariffs are a moderate long-term threat. With limited protective levers to pull, two-thirds of HIRC members are actively seeking to diversify their supplier base.

our suppliers related to recent tariff announcement without further due diligence. We will require full visibility to the multi-tier Bill of Material, to include associated price breakdowns, to understand country of origin and duty impact appropriately. We are first and foremost committed to fulfilling our caring mission. We continue to value our partnerships and trust that suppliers will work with us to find mutually beneficial solutions during these uncertain times.”

Providers in the HIRC community are willing to have candid discussion on the impacts of tariffs, but not without transparency and clear rational. Partners

The tariff situation is changing rapidly, emphasizing the need for close monitoring and enterprise-wide scenario planning. The healthcare industry, both hospitals and suppliers, need to lean in to face these pressures together, HIRC advised.

While the tariff impacts unfold in the marketplace, Allina Health has taken a clear stance on how it will behave with suppliers who intend to pass tariff charges at some point over the coming weeks and months. “We have placed specific safeguards within our Shared Services Team responsible for procure to pay and data management procedures at this time.” said Tom Lubotsky, Vice President, Chief Supply Chain Officer and Chair of HIRC. “Allina Health expects our suppliers to honor their existing pricing agreements that have been negotiated in good faith and will not accept price adjustments from

of HIRC including Clarium are offering HIRC members tariff impact risk assessments using the power of AI, HIRC reported. “These insights are fully unlocked when the underlying data is available, some of which only the supplier can provide.”

Transparency for the end-to-end supply chain is not only critical to understanding the potential cost implications of tariffs, it’s vital to protecting the lifeline of essential medical goods from any and all disruptive forces. Transparency builds trust, enables proactive planning, and places trading partners in a better position to face challenges together.

Leading the Way

How the CAPS Research Initiative is shaping the future of supply chain management.

BY PETE MERCER

In today’s fast-paced world, keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of supply chain management can feel like a constant challenge. That’s where the Center for Advanced Procurement Strategy (CAPS) comes in. Based at Arizona State University (ASU), CAPS is all about helping supply chain professionals stay ahead of the curve with innovative research, practical insights, and real-world solutions. From embracing new technologies to support supply chain performance, like artificial intelligence to managing supplier risks, CAPS is guiding organizations through the complexities of modern procurement. With a focus on collaboration and industry-driven research, CAPS Research gives companies the tools, frameworks and strategies they need to not just keep up but lead in an increasingly competitive market.

CAPS is a B2B nonprofit research center with access to a research team of over 40 faculty from ASU’s highly ranked Department of Supply Chain Management. It serves supply management

leaders at Fortune 1000 companies and other participating organizations. CAPS believes that supply management has the ability to transform businesses, economies, and lives. They work to create

connections, gather best practices, and elevate the teams of the organizations that they build partnerships with. Gene Schneller, the Interim Executive Director of CAPS, and Geoffrey Zwemke, Director of Analytics & Product for CAPS, spoke at IDN Insights West in Phoenix, Arizona about the history of CAPS, its major areas of focus, and the road to supply chain optimization.

About CAPS Research Initiative

Founded in 1986, CAPS Research emerged as a response to the growing recognition that supply chain management was a crucial aspect of business

operations that needed specialized research and focused attention. The center’s mission was clear: to bridge the gap between academia and industry by providing evidence-driven insights that would enhance purchasing, logistics, operations, and overall supply chain efficiency.

One of the unique features of CAPS Research is its deep connection to Arizona State University, which provides an unbiased, academic perspective while also fostering industry collaborations. With a network of academic and industry professionals, CAPS is able to offer both foundational knowledge and forward-thinking research that addresses modern supply chain challenges.

Schneller described CAPS as unique because of its alignment with Arizona State University and relationship with the Institute for Supply Management. Of the 40 supply chain experts on staff at Arizona State University, one-third focuses on operations management, another one-third focuses on strategy, and the final one-third focuses on logistics.

He said, “We (ASU) developed what was probably the first labeled supply chain department in the country – we had a long-standing focus on operations research and purchasing, Our goal was to bring all of those together in something unique, called ‘supply chain’. Of course, it took a pandemic for everybody to know what we all do.”

Schneller says that he has often thought that the healthcare industry has to continue to learn from other industries, especially around the areas of risk management, resilience and procurement. “Our goal at ASU is to be ‘the world’s supply chain university,’” he said.

Why benchmarking matters

One area that CAPS pours a significant number of resources into is benchmarking. Benchmarking is crucial because it allows organizations to compare their performance against industry standards or best practices, helping them identify areas for improvement. By evaluating their processes, strategies and results against top-performing competitors or recognized leaders, companies can uncover inefficiencies, set realistic goals, and drive continuous improvement. Benchmarking also fosters innovation by revealing new methods or technologies that can enhance productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. For example, recent work scrutinizing the adoption of AI for improved business performance provides the evidence needed for supply chain leaders to make the business case for their IT investments.

For CAPS, the ability to use benchmarking data is an opportunity to develop better insights about the industry. Zwemke said, “Benchmarking is important whether you’re upstream or downstream to understand how well your supply chain department is performing.” Because with benchmarking you are playing the comparison game, it’s important to understand how your organization measures up to others in the industry, and even how you measure up to your own performance metrics. “Of even greater performance is our commitment to using benchmarks to drive improvement in performance,” Zwemke said. “CAPS has a commitment cross-industry comparison. We have seen in very unique industries and sectors, like healthcare, there are lessons to be learned from the best-in-class doing best-in-class things.”

The importance of industry collaboration

A key part of what makes CAPS stand out is its ability to leverage data to increase industry collaboration. Because it’s a sales-free environment, the data is a critical piece of the puzzle. By partnering with leading organizations and experts, CAPS fosters a dynamic exchange of knowledge and ideas, ensuring that its research is always grounded in real-world challenges. These collaborations allow supply chain professionals to stay ahead of trends and adopt best practices that drive efficiency and innovation.

The opportunity to collaborate with other organizations and other industries is part of the central mission for Schneller and his team. Building those relationships allows them to develop a deeper understanding of what the data says about supply chain performance, manufacturing, and the various relationships in the supply chain. He said, “We tend to have an upstream focus in terms of manufacturing, but one of the things we learned during COVID is that the relationship between upstream and downstream supply chains is important.”

CAPS provides education through webinars, seminars, and mentorship programs, providing opportunities for professionals to deepen their expertise and stay updated on the latest developments in the field. The commitment to collaboration and learning helps to develop a community of well-informed, forward-thinking leaders who are ready to tackle the challenges of tomorrow’s supply chains. The CAPS library of research, consisting of over 700 documents, can be accessed at: www.capsresearch.org.

For further information please contact gene.schneller@asu.edu.

Arrowhead Medical Supply

AMS is building partnerships across tribal health, federal agencies, and health systems to empower Native communities and redefine supplier standards.

Arrowhead Medical Supply (AMS) was founded by Wayne Montour, a proud advocate for Native representation in business, who saw both a need and an opportunity to increase Native American presence in the healthcare supply chain. Montour brought that vision to life by recruiting long-time medical distribution and manufacturing executives Gina Marchese and Scott Quilty to help launch the company. The result is a purposeful mix of cultural identity, business acumen, and operational expertise.

AMS operates with a clear mission to empower Native communities while serving as a reliable, forward-thinking partner to health systems. It offers a combination of Indigenous credentials and proven industry experience. With Native Americans owning less than one percent of all U.S. businesses, and only a small portion of those in healthcare, Arrowhead is focused on creating pathways for meaningful participation and leadership in the sector.

“This company represents more than a business venture,” said Montour.

“It’s about creating opportunity for Native-owned enterprises to be recognized as credible, strategic suppliers in a space where we have traditionally been underrepresented.”

Montour’s leadership is shaped by personal history. His father, Roy Montour, was a member of the Mohawks of Kahnawake, born in Buffalo, New York in 1925, and built a life rooted in resilience and selfreliance. After a long career with General Motors, Roy went on to launch his own business, Arrowhead Refrigeration, serving

the local hotel industry with hands-on skill and determination. That work ethic was passed down to Wayne, who first founded Green Arrow, a successful staffing firm, before turning his focus to AMS.

Connections and impact

Arrowhead Medical Supply works across three distinct areas of the healthcare landscape: tribal health networks, federal agencies, and Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs).

The first priority is expanding partnerships with Indian Health Service and tribal communities, including the twelve federally recognized tribes in Michigan. “There is tremendous opportunity here in Michigan to deliver real value to our Native communities,” said Montour, who is a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe based in Akwesasne, New York.

Wayne Montour

Gina Marchese

Scott Quilty

“And we see similar opportunities in New York and other states where we can build relationships that reflect the needs of each tribe and community we serve.”

Arrowhead is also engaging with federal institutions such as the Department of Defense and the Veterans Affairs health system. These agencies offer Indian incentive programs that create meaningful channels for certified Nativeowned businesses to contribute.

Another focus is the IDN and nonacute care market, where healthcare systems are actively seeking ways to meet minority business enterprise (MBE) spend goals. “Many health systems have made bold commitments to increase their spend with MBE suppliers,” Montour said. “We are collaborating with organizations that see us not only as a way to meet those goals, but as a capable and dependable supplier who can scale with their needs.”

AMS has established a strong base of Class I medical products and sourcing partnerships that emphasize U.S.-based and near-shore manufacturing. These relationships are built with a strict eye on compliance, product performance, and long-term supply chain strength.

“ We understand what health systems are looking for. They want products they can trust, delivered on time, and backed by responsive support. Beyond that, we aim to provide lasting value and first-class service. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and it guides who we choose to work with.”

“Our sourcing strategy is built on consistency, accountability, and the ability to grow alongside our customers,” said Gina Marchese, Senior Advisor

for Operations. “We have aligned with suppliers who understand the realities of healthcare delivery and share our commitment to service and quality. That is what our customers deserve and expect.”

Montour added, “We understand what health systems are looking for.

They want products they can trust, delivered on time, and backed by responsive support. Beyond that, we aim to provide lasting value and firstclass service. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and it guides who we choose to work with.”

Roy Montour

Technology in Post-Acute

How technology is changing the way post-acute care is delivered.

The healthcare landscape is continuing to evolve to meet the needs of patients within medical facilities and beyond the hospital setting.

Technological advancements such as AI, telehealth, remote patient monitoring and more have transformed post-acute and at-home care by enhancing accessibility of care, improving efficiency, and enabling personalized patient support.

“Many people, even those with complex care needs, can be cared for at home after a hospital stay thanks to emerging technologies,” said Dr. Steven Landers, CEO of the National Alliance for Care at Home. “It is also less costly to the system than unnecessary hospital days and nursing home care.”

The Alliance, comprised of more than 1,500 members from all 50 states, is an organization of home health, hospice, home care, palliative care, and other careat-home service providers that are driving

forward the home care movement. The Alliance’s partners include technology companies, consulting firms and other organizations committed to patients having access to high-quality healthcare at home.

“One of the things top of mind for patients and families when they are hospitalized is how they can safely return home after their inpatient care,” said Dr. Landers. “Post-acute care at-home offers an opportunity for continued recovery, rehabilitation and disease management in a comfortable environment.”

Advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of the healthcare experience today. It has revolutionized physician communication, driven better patient outcomes, and has largely reshaped the way care has been traditionally delivered.

“New AI and analytics tools are helping physicians with risk stratification, triage, and quality gap analysis and closure,” said Dr. Landers. “I’ve been impressed with the role of some of the risk stratification and triage tools used specifically in post-acute healthcare. For example, the company Medalogix has a software product on the market that has helped home health providers identify patients who have poor survival prognosis and may benefit from conversations about hospice and palliative care. This tool has likely helped hundreds of thousands of patients receive more patient-centered care based on their goals and circumstances.”

Technology has also changed the way post-acute care providers handle administrative tasks and aspects of patient care, making standard processes more streamlined and efficient.

“The nature of clinical documentation is changing. The back-office billing and administrative functions are being assisted by new AI tools,” said Dr. Landers. “Remote monitoring and telehealth tools are more frequently supporting more seamless access in between visits and physician/provider certification visits.”

Potential of tech in post-acute care

The promise and opportunity of telehealth in post-acute care has not yet been fully realized. While telehealth and technology has transformed many areas of healthcare, its integration into post-acute and at-home care remains uneven.

“While improvements in physician certification tasks, management of urgent situations to avoid preventable hospitalization, and ongoing monitoring have grown, regulatory limitations and lack of clarity on some compliance and reimbursement restrictions are limiting the full potential of AI and other technologies,” said Dr. Landers.

Though tech solutions have been a growing area of investment across the nation for hospitals and health systems; skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and other post-acute providers have largely been excluded and/or delayed in benefitting from the past decade of substantial public and private-sector investment in information technology (IT), according to the NIH.

To realize telemedicine’s full potential across the industry, collaboration among the healthcare and technology sectors is imperative. Through remote consultations, monitoring, and diagnosis facilitated by technology, according to the NIH, techbased healthcare can extend its reach to remote and underserved areas and healthcare sectors while enhancing accessibility.

To continue advancing the goal of technologically integrated post-acute care facilities, the NIH asserts in its “Progress Toward Digital Transformation in an Evolving Post-Acute Landscape” report a need to expand efforts to identify and address design, implementation, and use issues that continue to impede progress toward optimal IT-enabled care.

Technology tackles challenges Technology has certainly played a role in assisting post-acute care providers, but it has a ways to go in terms of fully addressing the overwhelming and persistent challenges facing the industry.

Staffing shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic are an ongoing issue across the healthcare sector, which Landers says has continued to be a significant obstacle impacting physicians’ ability to provide quality, patient-centered post-acute care.

meet the growing demand for quality care across post-acute care.

The future of post-acute care technology

Looking forward, Dr. Landers said that the rapid growth of the 85 and older population, the falling caregiver support ratios and workforce constraints, the preference for care at home, the cost pressures on Medicare, and technological and care

“Many communities are facing nursing other health professional shortages, and these providers are in competition with hospitals and facilities for a finite number of workers. We need a range of solutions to improve the situation.”

“Many communities are facing nursing other health professional shortages, and these providers are in competition with hospitals and facilities for a finite number of workers. We need a range of solutions to improve the situation,” said Dr. Landers. “Technology that supports logistics, reduced documentation time, care coordination, point-of-care decisions, remote monitoring, and more are all helping with workforce shortage challenges, but we still need more caregivers.”

While Dr. Landers stresses that technology has helped to address physician and caretaker shortages, the healthcare workforce is still under an immense amount of stress.

Addressing the staffing crisis will require not only innovative technology and tools, but also strategic investments in training, recruitment, and retention to ensure the health industry is able to

model innovation opportunities will dominate ongoing conversations within the post-acute care industry.

To successfully navigate these shifts, the post-acute care industry must take a multi-faceted approach to progress that includes policy changes, workforce investments, financial reforms and the continued adoption of technology.

Efforts such as these, coordinated across groups such as healthcare providers, policymakers, and technology companies can help to ensure more effective and longterm access to technology solutions for post-acute care physicians and their patients.

“The healthcare industry must be working hand-in-hand with each other on advocacy efforts to help educate policymakers on opportunities to strengthen tech-enabled post-acute care,” Dr. Landers said.

Supply Chain By the Numbers

BY JOHN STRONG, CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF CONSULTING OFFICER, ACCESS STRATEGY PARTNERS INC

Expect more scrutiny of 340B drug pricing program in 2025

Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Bill Cassidy (R), Louisiana, has called for “much needed” reforms around the transparency and oversight of the 340B drug program. Congress created the program in 1992 to allow certain healthcare facilities that serve low-income patients to receive outpatient drugs at discounted prices. “Drug manufacturers are required to provide these discounts as a condition of participation in the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program.” 1

$66.3 Billion Amount of drug purchases through the program in 2023. $12 Billion 340B expenditures a decade ago.2

Several studies have suggested that the program does little to pass benefits on to patients, or to the federal government. In fact, larger healthcare systems are generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue through the program – but fail to pass it along to patients. The result is a growing storm of controversy in Washington about the value of the program.

A January 2025 article in The New York Times stated that “The program’s escalation has driven up health care costs for employers, patients, and taxpayers, studies show.” For the past 20 years, the program has been administered by Apexus, a subsidiary of Vizient, Irving, Texas, and was on track to double their revenue from $227 million in 2018 to $454 million in 2022.3

Drug manufacturers have been fighting the program’s growth for years. In addition, in at least some cases, costs are passed along to patients. Like a GPO, Apexus charges a 3% fee for drugs that are provided by drug distributors. Apexus also earns millions of dollars on drug purchases made outside the 340B program.

In 2021 Baxter wanted to sell non340B drugs without going through Apexus. The regulators would not allow it, however. In early November 2024, Premier Inc. sued the federal government over these types of sales. The suit alleges that this forces hospitals to pay higher prices for certain non-340B drugs and drives revenues to both drug manufacturers as well as Apexus.

Dr. Cassidy’s findings lay out reforms for the program that include detailed annual reporting by covered entities, require greater transparency and provide clear guidelines to ensure that manufacturer discounts benefit 340B eligible patients. With DOGE stalking the halls in Washington, look for more attention on this program.

More on tariffs

Companies and supply chain “experts” have begun to project the effects of the Trump Administration tariffs on the healthcare supply chain. This does not mean that they are really taking hits to their costs yet – and no one knows the outcomes of any trade deals as of May 1, 2025.

There are several things to ask yourselves and your suppliers as these impacts are discussed, and the timing of any potential price increases attributed to “tariffs.”

 There is a great deal of confusion over which products are subject to tariffs, where some products are made, and when they will be impacted by a tariff.

 When confronted with a “tariffcaused” price increase, you should

ask for demonstration that a tariff on the goods was actually paid. Manufacturers and distributors should be able to produce documents indicating the tariff date and amount.

 Some suppliers are saying that they are going to absorb some of the tariff. That is wonderful, but how much did the ultimate manufacturer (OEM) of the materials and the seller both absorb ?

Ask yourself if they can absorb more and determine who is really bearing the pain of a tariff besides you.

 The Administration is trying to rapidly negotiate many new trade deals. The situation is highly fluid because the president continues to add and back off certain tariffs. No one can really project what the annual impact is going to be on prices – because it is far too early to be discussing annual impacts.

 If tariffs cause prices to go up – and the administration is successful in new trade deals that rescind, or lower tariffs – do your contracts allow for future price decreases ?

Tariff cost projections

Here are what some suppliers are already projecting in terms of annual cost impact4:

1 Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee press release, April 24, 2025.

2 Ibid.

3 Gabler, Ellen, “How a Company Makes Millions Off a Hospital Program Meant to Help the Poor”, The New York Times, January 15 (updated January 16) 2025.

4 Sources include The Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Grand Rapids and MedTech Dive.

It’s a Start

More resilient supply chains begin with bold legislation.

BY R. DANA BARLOW

The late chef, author and television show host Anthony Bourdain was once quoted as saying, “Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start.” Thankfully, he didn’t specify the style or type of BBQ sauce – Texas, Kansas City, North Carolina, etc., or the culinary path to peace would be coated with potholes, each one seasoned differently.

After enduring a rash of crises that included the global COVID-19 pandemic, weather-related disasters and man-made disasters involving cargo container ships during the last five years that disrupted the supply chain in myriad ways, that same supply chain could use whatever help it can get to justify and reinforce its essential nature not just during uncertain times, but during ALL times.

A bipartisan quartet of senators, teamed with a bipartisan duo of representatives recently to introduce the “Medical

Supply Chain Resiliency Act,” well in advance of the ensuing tariff volleys that has ignited a global trade war.

One of the leading national parent group purchasing organizations (GPOs), Premier, promptly issued a statement applauding the legislation.

“A strong and sustainable healthcare supply chain is essential for quality patient care and requires a multifaceted strategy that bolsters domestic manufacturing while cultivating trusted trade partnerships,” stated Soumi Saha,

PharmD, JD, Premier’s senior vice president of Government Affairs. “Currently, many healthcare products are overly reliant on a single supplier, country, or region for manufacturing, leading to potential shortages and disruptions to patient care. True supply chain diversification requires a balanced approach of onshoring on U.S. soil, nearshoring with trusted trade partners and offshoring with global sourcing to achieve greater redundancy and minimize disruptions.

“The Medical Supply Chain Resiliency Act will ensure a more diverse and secure supply network for critical medical products by reducing barriers to trade that undermine U.S. national security and supply chain stability,” Saha continued in the official statement. “Premier urges Congress to act swiftly to pass the Medical Supply Chain Resiliency Act, securing uninterrupted access to essential healthcare supplies for providers and patients alike.” Premier provided a link to one of its reports on trending information.

It’s a start.

“You don’t have to be great to start. But you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar

While legislation can be helpful, it only represents an edict (if passed). Execution follows. If the legislation represents an aim or a goal, someone needs to turn it into a plan that then is implemented. Execution requires expertise. Expertise can emerge from a number of areas – academia, business, consulting and even government. At least three of those options specialize in the theoretical; one specializes in the actionable.

“You don’t have to be good to start … you just have to start to be good!”

– Joe Sabah

Unfortunately, blending business acumen with government machination has proven to be a curious, if not precarious, endeavor, as we’ve witnessed historically from the small number of businessmen who were elected president and various state governors from both political parties.

During those experiences, citizens watched the challenges and difficulty of mixing business with government, akin to stirring oil with water.

“Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited about what could go right.”

– Tony Robbins

But recruiting business-minded expertise to address and potentially solve business/economic-oriented problems represents both a sound strategy, personality aside. Today, people watch President Donald Trump relying on businessman Elon Musk to generate governmental efficiency and performance improvement, albeit with mixed emotions and results. But Trump certainly isn’t alone nor the poster child for these activities. Remember that he tapped business executives for key roles during his first term, too, one of whom recently resigned after trying to reform U.S. Postal Service operations since 2020.

“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

– Thomas Jefferson

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt relied on Harry Hopkins to develop jobcreating agencies (at least one of which still exists today) to spur the economy. Roosevelt and his successor President Harry Truman relied on automotive industry executives that included Edsel Ford and son Henry Ford II to fortify war-time production and supply chain for the military. Truman also relied on a predecessor from the opposing

party, Herbert Hoover, to advise him on postwar recovery efforts. Hoover was the nation’s second president with a business background, after Warren Harding. President John Kennedy relied on a team of private-sector advisors from academia and business to help him navigate through economic and geopolitical crises in the early 1960s. Back in late 2023, President Joe Biden appointed a Chief Competition Officer within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

To wit, just about every president within the last 125 years has tapped private-sector business experience and expertise to move processes, programs and projects forward.

Supply chain – healthcare supply chain, in particular – should be no exception.

A federal bill is admirable, but it’s only a start.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

– Arthur Ashe

To translate Congressional aims for medical supply chain resiliency into action requires boots-on-the-ground, in-thetrenches, at-the-docks decisionmakers, but not just ordinary supply chain business executives from manufacturers, distributors, healthcare providers and GPOs. What’s needed are ones with governance exposure that enables them to balance private and public needs as fairly as possible. Because these executives know how their industry works for the people, they can implement and influence how the legislation works for their industry working for the people.

In an exclusive interview with The Journal of Healthcare Contracting about

GPOs working with providers and suppliers to navigate through tariffs, Premier’s Chief Customer Officer Andy Brailo demonstrated a passion, a recognition and an understanding of how the supply chain industry must operate for public good.

“Everyone has to work together,” he said. “They’re going to have to make sacrifices. If you’re reinvesting into your business, whether it’s a hospital, a supplier or whatnot, that means you’re taking money out of the pockets of the executives that are making the decisions. I understand free enterprise, capitalism and all that kind of stuff, but even

capitalists understand that you reinvest into the business to grow the business, and in this case, you’re not only trying to grow the business, but you’re also trying to grow financial security for the organization and the economy. In doing so, you have to be somewhat selfless and to give up some of the gains for the good of the whole.”

Brailo further posits that while there’s a cost for this kind of mindset and activity, there’s also a cost for inactivity – doing nothing. “Think about

what’s happened over the last several years,” he noted. “If a manufacturer does not have the products needed because of some global issue, there’s a reputational risk they earn. I will tell you one thing about healthcare is that our healthcare providers have really long memories. Some of this frustration has reached a fever pitch with certain suppliers because of continued disruption. In order to maintain that business, [the suppliers] have to invest in this process.”

But Brailo doesn’t let providers off the hook. “If you’re asking for things, then when you get them you have to act upon them. So, if you’re saying we need to have more domestic resiliency, then you need to make a concerted effort to purchase those domestic-manufactured products,” he said.

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.”

– Winston Churchill

R. Dana Barlow serves as a senior writer and columnist for The Journal of Healthcare Contracting. Barlow has nearly four decades of journalistic experience and has covered healthcare supply chain issues for more than 30 years. He can be reached at rickdanabarlow@wingfootmedia.biz.

Industry News

Banner Health breaks ground on new medical campus

Banner Health officially broke ground on May 21 on the new Banner Health Center plus in Scottsdale, launching the first phase of a comprehensive medical campus. The nearly 120,000-square-foot building will include a surgery center, Banner Family Pharmacy, Banner Imaging, and a wide range of primary and specialty physician services all under one roof.

“Today’s groundbreaking demonstrates Banner’s commitment to delivering more health care options close to where people live and supporting the economic vitality of our communities,” said Amy Perry, Banner Health president and chief executive director. “With more than 50,000 Banner members living in Scottsdale who rely on us of their care, this campus will reduce travel and seamlessly provide outpatient services in one place, giving Scottsdale families easier access to everything from urgent care to advanced cancer treatments.”

Slated for completion in early 2027, Banner Health Center plus will include:

 Ambulatory surgery center

 Banner Family Pharmacy and Banner Imaging

 Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center will bring nationally recognized expertise in radiation oncology, infusion, and oncology imaging to Scottsdale.

 Banner Urgent Care, open 365 days a year with extended hours

 Primary and specialty care

Northwell Health opens Center for Bioelectronic Medicine

After decades of pioneering bioelectronic medicine research, Northwell Health today announced the opening of its clinical Center for Bioelectronic Medicine. Those interested in participating in bioelectronic medicine clinical trials, including studies evaluating vagus nerve stimulation, can do so through the new Center. As bioelectronic medicine devices are approved for use, they will be offered to patients at the Center.

The first Center is located at 350 Community Drive in Manhasset, NY. The facility features a waiting area, patient rooms and a clinical space for research nurses, doctors and clinical trial coordinators to consult with patients and participants. Northwell intends to relocate and expand the Manhasset location within the next few years. Planning is underway for a second center located in Manhattan, NY.

Hackensack Meridian Health announces new leadership structure

Hackensack Meridian Health announced a new leadership structure upon the planned retirement of Chief Operating Officer (COO) Mark Stauder, effective July 2, 2025. Stauder will transition to an advisory role before fully retiring later in the year.

Mark D. Sparta, FACHE, a 30-year veteran of HMH, will succeed Stauder as COO, effective July 2, 2025. Sparta’s experience within the network, including his leadership as President of the Northern Market and President & Chief Hospital Executive of Hackensack University Medical Center, positions him to transition into the role seamlessly. As COO, Sparta will lead the operational and management functions for our acute care hospitals, children’s and specialty hospitals, patient care services, clinical Joint Ventures, ambulatory services, facilities and construction, real estate, and network-wide clinical services and service lines. He will also assume the role of president of the HMH Hospitals Corporation and Hackensack Meridian Ambulatory Care Boards.

To further optimize operations and enhance collaboration, HMH has eliminated the Regional President role and created two new positions: President, Acute Care Hospital Division, and President, Specialty Hospitals and Clinical Services.

Midmark is the first and only manufacturer in the market to have both a procedure chair and an examination chair that comply with the US Access Board Standard.

Getting to know the standard

01 Seat Height: 17" or lower and 25" or higher

02 Transfer Surface: 21" wide and 17" deep

03 Base Clearance: 26" wide or less

04 Transfer Supports: Compliant to the US Access Board Standard

05 Leg Supports: Support the patient’s thigh, knee and calf

Learn more at: midmark.com/newlow

Source:

(2024,

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/07/25/2024-16266/standards-for-accessible-medical-diagnostic-equipment

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Premier Uncovers What Others Donʼt –

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Premier's comprehensive spend management approach maximizes supply chain savings beyond the 35% of supply, drug and service spend typically addressed by a GPO, evaluating the total non-labor spend to ensure every dollar is optimized.

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