JHC-Oct.26 by BOC design Inc

October 2026 Vol. 22 • No. 5

The Trauma Experience March 16 -17 | Denver, CO | Hyatt Regency

Together with you, we are full force. More than a portfolio. A trusted partner in the moments that count.

Trauma Value Program

Join Stryker’s Trauma Alliance team for a one-day immersive experience designed to help you take control of your orthopaedic trauma service line and shape its future with greater confidence.

At The Trauma Experience, you’ll take a closer look at what it takes to build and sustain a high-performing trauma program and the clinical, operational, and financial considerations that influence it. Through hands-on learning and expert-led discussion, you’ll deepen your understanding of the trauma service line, experience the breadth of Stryker’s trauma portfolio, and explore strategies for value analysis, contracting, physician engagement, and inventory optimization. You’ll leave with a stronger understanding of the opportunities within your own program, new ways to approach complex decisions, and practical ideas you can bring back to your organization as you plan for 2027 and beyond.

Apply now

Together, let’s turn your pain points into possibilities. Audience: Supply chain professionals and OR leaders

Trauma Experience 2027: Take Control of Your Trauma Service Line Time

Session

10:30-11:30am

Registration

11:00-12:00pm

Lunch

12:00-6:00pm

Opening Session: Understanding the Decisions That Shape Trauma Care Session 1: Building Clinical Understanding Session 2: Building Collaborative Partnerships Session 3: Building Strategic Solutions Session 4: Speaker Panel - Leading the Future of Your Trauma Service Line

October 2026 Vol. 22 • No. 5

Preparing for the Unpredictable The best defense against disruption is a supply chain built for resilience long before the crisis hits.

Connect Every Beat Empower Every Decision By delivering trusted, high-quality cardiac data through advanced ECG devices and data management solutions, Baxter’s Cardiac Care Solutions help clinicians drive clarity, build conﬁdence, and make informed decisions on every step of a patient’s cardiac journey.

INPATIENT CARE

OUTPATIENT CARE

RESTING ECG

RESTING ECGS

ELI 380 Resting ECG ELI 280 Resting ECG

EXERCISE STRESS TESTING Q-Stress Cardiac Stress Testing System

Diagnostic Cardiology Suite Resting ECG

Cardio Server ECG Management System

DATA MANAGEMENT CONNECTION

AMBULATORY CARDIAC MONITORING CAM Patch

Connect Every Beat with Baxter Cardiac Care Solutions. Scan to learn more.

Rx Only. For safe and proper use of the products mentioned herein, please refer to the Operators Manual or Instructions for Use. Baxter, CAM, ELI and Q-Stress are trademarks of Baxter International Inc. US-FLC198-260003 (v1.0) 04/2026

CONTENTS O CTO B E R 2 0 2 6

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is published bi-monthly by Share Moving Media 350 Town Center Ave, Ste 201 Suwanee, GA 30024 -6914 Phone: 770/263-5262 FAX: 770/236-8023 e-mail: info@jhconline.com www.jhconline.com

Editorial Staff Editor Graham Garrison ggarrison@sharemovingmedia.com

Senior Writer and Columnist R. Dana Barlow rickdanabarlow@wingfootmedia.biz

Editor-in-Chief, Dail-eNews Jenna Hughes jhughes@sharemovingmedia.com

Content Creator Pete Mercer pmercer@sharemovingmedia.com

Feature

Preparing for the Unpredictable

Art Director Brent Cashman bcashman@sharemovingmedia.com

The best defense against disruption is a supply chain built for resilience long before the crisis hits.

Publisher John Pritchard

 pg 8

jpritchard@sharemovingmedia.com

Circulation Laura Gantert lgantert@sharemovingmedia.com

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting (ISSN 1548-4165) is published monthly by Share Moving Media, 350 Town Center Ave, Ste 201, Suwanee, GA 30024-6914. Copyright 2026 by Share Moving Media. All rights reserved. If you would like to subscribe or notify us of address changes, please contact us at the above numbers or address. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Share Moving Media, 350 Town Center Ave, Ste 201, Suwanee, GA 30024-6914. Please note: The acceptance of advertising or products mentioned by contributing authors does not constitute endorsement by the publisher. Publisher cannot accept responsibility for the correctness of an opinion expressed by contributing authors.

Publisher’s Letter: Resilience Isn’t a Season. It’s a System.

Powering the Hospital of Tomorrow

UCI Health’s all-electric Irvine campus offers a glimpse into the future of healthcare facility design – and lessons in sustainability, resilience, technology and supplier collaboration.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

Healthcare in Motion

Physician-Supply Chain Partnership

Vizient’s Impact of Change report projects significant growth in outpatient, home health and postacute care, creating new opportunities and challenges for health systems and supply chain leaders.

SMI Executive Briefing explores shifting supply chain priorities.

Cultivating GPO Progress For What May Lurk Around The Corner

Accuracy vs. Efficiency

Companies must balance core mission with market complexity, dynamics.

I nsights from the National Accounts Summit

Leveraging Reimbursement to Promote Domestic Manufacturing

Industry News

Which would you rather have?

Subscribe/renew @ www.jhconline.com : click subscribe



PUBLISHER’S LETTER

Resilience Isn’t a Season. It’s a System.

John Pritchard

Each year, from summer to fall, healthcare

isn’t about capacity at all. It involves candor.

supply chain leaders in locations such as the

Organizations that share bad news early, he says,

Gulf Coast and South Florida are watching

are worth more than ones that promise every-

the tropics. But as this issue makes clear, the

thing will be fine.

organizations that weather disruption best aren’t

That same tension between structure and

the ones with the best hurricane plan. They’re

adaptability runs through our second installment

the ones that have stopped treating resilience as

on the future of GPOs. As Bruce Radcliff, Steve

a seasonal exercise at all.

Downey and John Strong debate whether GPOs

At Baptist Health South Florida, that shows

should return to their contracting roots or

up as a weekly Tuesday huddle where the entire

keep expanding into broader strategic services,

supply chain team reviews dashboards track-

the real question underneath is the same one

ing back orders, invoice match exceptions and

Sanchez and Colaguori are wrestling with. How

“hazard flagged” items, hurricane or not. Chris

much of what we’ve built is core, and how

Sanchez, the health system’s Director of Sustain-

much is scaffolding we could rebuild if we had

ability and Resilience, put it simply: the people,

to? Strong’s reminder that “it’s still all about

processes and technology built for storm season

the relationships” could apply just as easily to a

are the same ones that carried the organization

vendor’s storm preparedness plan as to a GPO’s

through other disruptions. The threat changes.

contract portfolio.

The game plan doesn’t. Ron Colaguori at BayCare Health System

None of these leaders are predicting the future. They’re preparing for the fact that they

frames it in a similar way. His team’s approach,

can’t. That’s the throughline of this issue,

including pre-approved substitutions, mapped

and maybe the best definition of resilience

manufacturing footprints and real time inventory

we’ve got. Not a plan for the disruption you

visibility, is really an infrastructure for absorbing

expect, but a system flexible enough to handle

whatever comes next, whether that’s a storm, a

the one you don’t.

cyberattack, or a supplier quietly running low on raw materials three tiers down the chain. And notably, Colaguori’s biggest ask of suppliers

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

Medtronic Microstream™ Advance filter lines | Clinical performance

A capnography sampling line is more than a cannula Bench testing shows the sampling line plays a critical role in the accuracy and reliability of the capnography system.

†, 1

Supply-chain decisions must balance cost, standardization, product performance, and patient care. Capnography sampling lines should be evaluated with that same rigor. In bench top testing, sampling lines that claim compatibility with the Microstream™ Advance connector exhibited inconsistent performance, suggesting cross-paired lines may fail to deliver reliable, consistent, or accurate measurements.†, 1

Only the Microstream™ Advance filter line consistently provides accurate readings, expected filter performance and mechanical integrity when paired with a Microstream™ technology-enabled monitor.†, 1 Scan the QR code to see the evidence behind the reading before your next contracting cycle.

Before standardizing on an alternative, look beyond claimed compatibility and evaluate the evidence behind its performance.

† Testing funded and conducted by Medtronic; bench results may not be indicative of clinical performance. Bench tests compared performance of sampling lines commonly used with spontaneous breathing patients under various breathing conditions. Three categories of sampling line products were evaluated: oral-nasal cannulas (n=9), EtCO2 masks (n=2), and procedural bite blocks (n=2). 1. Jones T, Glozman D, Oglesby H, Mulier JP. Comparative analysis of accuracy, filter performance, and durability among capnography sampling lines: A bench study. Medtronic Manuscript. 2024



MODEL OF THE FUTURE

Powering the Hospital of Tomorrow UCI Health’s all-electric Irvine campus offers a glimpse into the future of healthcare facility design – and lessons in sustainability, resilience, technology and supplier collaboration.

For decades, the model has remained the same. Hospitals have been built around a fundamental reliance on fossil fuels. From sterilization and humidification to heating and steam generation, the energy demands of acute care facilities have made the idea of eliminating natural gas seem impractical – if not impossible. UCI Health, however, decided to challenge that assumption. UCI Health – Irvine is now home to what the organization describes as the nation’s first all-electric acute care hospital, a milestone that grew out of a broader institutional commitment to sustainability and a willingness to rethink conventional hospital design. The project began with a simple question: If the hospital was being built from the ground up, could its systems be designed without relying on gas?

“We like to push the envelope in terms of our sustainability goals,” says Paul Da Veiga, Vice President of Planning, Design & Construction at UCI Health. With a greenfield site providing an opportunity to rethink traditional infrastructure, the project team examined everything from centralized steam production to the economics of electrification. What they found was that going all-electric was not only technically feasible, but also financially compelling, with a projected return on investment of less than four years. The decision ultimately offers a case study in how healthcare organizations can approach facility design differently; balancing sustainability goals with clinical requirements, operational realities and financial considerations. For healthcare leaders facing pressure to reduce emissions, improve resilience and control long-term operating costs, UCI Health’s experience provides a glimpse into what the hospital of the future could look like.

A more sophisticated operating model Going all-electric required UCI Health to overcome more than the challenge of selecting new equipment. Because the hospital was the first of its kind, the systems had to work together in ways that had not been tested at another acute care facility. One example involved heating water to temperatures required by healthcare regulations. The hospital uses heat-recovery chillers to capture heat that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. That recovered heat is used for hot water and

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

space heating, while electrified boilers provide the additional heat needed to meet regulatory requirements before the water is distributed throughout the hospital and adjacent ambulatory care center. “The interdependencies and the controls between all of this sophisticated equipment were, I think, one of the biggest initial challenges,” says Da Veiga. The new system also demands a different workforce. “It is a different skill set, and we are still learning,” Da Veiga says. Engineers and tradespeople must understand controls, equipment interdependencies, commissioning and advanced system maintenance. As a result, UCI Health continues to optimize the system. “There is a lot of retro-commissioning activity going on right now,” Da Veiga says, as the team gains experience operating and fine-tuning the hospital’s advanced infrastructure.

Making sustainability part of the healing environment For all the sophistication behind UCI Health – Irvine’s energy infrastructure, the hospital’s all-electric design is intentionally invisible to patients and clinicians. Da Veiga says the transition away from natural gas has not required healthcare workers to change how they deliver care. “From a workflow standpoint, there is truly no difference,” he says. “You would not know the difference, to be quite honest.” Behind the scenes, however, the campus incorporates a broad range of sustainability strategies. The hospital and medical office building are tracking toward LEED

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

Platinum certification, while the ambulatory care center is LEED Gold. The main parking structure also has earned Parksmart certification, recognizing features such as bicycle parking, wayfinding and access to elevators and stairwells. The project’s environmental approach extends beyond energy efficiency. Located adjacent to a natural marsh, the campus was designed to manage stormwater and protect the surrounding ecosystem. A biofiltration system retains stormwater onsite before releasing cleaned water toward the marsh. Vegetation and riprap provide additional filtration before the water enters the marshland. The team also installed bird-safe glass throughout the campus, an important consideration given the site’s proximity to the marsh. While those choices carried additional costs, Da Veiga says they reflected UCI Health’s responsibility to be a good neighbor to the natural environment. Perhaps most significantly, the marsh was incorporated into the hospital’s vision for the patient experience. A large plaza between the hospital and ambulatory care center opens toward the marsh, providing space for patients, visitors and staff to spend time outdoors. “The mission on this particular site,” Da Veiga says, is “to bring nature into the healing environment and make it part of the healing experience for our patients.”



MODEL OF THE FUTURE

Build sustainability into the long-term plan For healthcare organizations considering their own sustainability initiatives, Da Veiga believes UCI Health’s experience demonstrates that ambitious goals are achievable when they are incorporated into the planning process from the beginning. The all-electric hospital has already attracted interest from health systems across the country, with organizations visiting UCI Health to learn from its experience. “I think the all-electric aspirations of other institutions should be strongly considered, especially for new construction,” Da Veiga says. Hospitals in Detroit, Seattle and California are among those exploring all-electric or all-electric-ready facilities. But Da Veiga cautions that pursuing innovation cannot come at the expense of safety, regulatory compliance or patient care. The key, he says, is having a long-term strategy that connects bigpicture sustainability goals with individual capital decisions. “We have to have a good plan,” he says. That plan starts with a high-level decarbonization strategy and then breaks down into increasingly detailed implementation plans, milestones and routine capital reviews. For UCI Health, that means sustainability considerations are incorporated into capital planning rather than treated as

an afterthought. Proposed projects are reviewed by the organization’s sustainability and energy leadership, who can identify opportunities to select equipment or technologies that support the larger decarbonization strategy. “It’s almost like peeling an onion,” Da Veiga says. “You start with your highlevel goals and aspirations, then determine how you’re going to get there.” That approach can help health systems avoid simply replacing aging equipment with newer versions of the same technology. Even when a more sustainable option carries a higher upfront cost, it may position the organization for greater progress toward its long-term goals. Ultimately, Da Veiga believes UCI Health’s experience demonstrates the value of thinking beyond a single project. “All of the decisions we make along the way need to reflect that long-term vision,” he says. For healthcare organizations pursuing decarbonization, that mindset may be one of the project’s most transferable lessons.

Suppliers can help move the market UCI Health’s sustainability efforts also demonstrate the influence health systems can have on the supplier market. As the team developed the Irvine campus, it looked beyond energy systems to the environmental impact of products used throughout the facilities – including furniture. The project team initially wanted 95% of its furniture purchases to meet defined sustainability standards. But Da Veiga says manufacturers were not always able to provide products with the certifications

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

UCI Health required. That created an opportunity for the health system and its suppliers to work together. “We moved the needle in the furniture market and with manufacturers,” Da Veiga says. As UCI Health communicated its requirements and prepared for its major furniture purchases, manufacturers began modifying product lines and adding the certifications needed to meet those standards. The same dynamic applied to equipment, including chillers, pumps and electrified boilers. By making sustainability a purchasing consideration, UCI Health created demand for products that could support its goals, and gave manufacturers an incentive to develop them. For Da Veiga, that illustrates an important role healthcare organizations can play in advancing sustainability beyond their own walls. “That’s one of the things I’m most proud of: having an impact on the market in a positive way,” he says.

Patient-centered design Sustainability was not the only lesson UCI Health carried into the design of its Irvine campus. Because much of the project was programmed and designed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the team incorporated real-time lessons about how healthcare spaces could respond to future outbreaks. Design considerations included both indoor and outdoor waiting areas, appropriate spacing in waiting rooms and faster elevators to reduce the amount of time patients and staff spend in enclosed spaces. “We were getting information in real time about how spaces should respond to a pandemic,” says Da Veiga. “We incorporated a lot of that thinking into the design of Irvine.”

A road map beyond Irvine The all-electric hospital at UCI Health – Irvine may be a first, but Da Veiga does not expect it to remain an outlier. As technology advances and manufacturers respond to growing demand, he sees greater potential for health systems to move away from the traditional centralized plant model. When UCI Health began planning the Irvine project, only a handful of chillers, heat pumps and other technologies had received approval from California’s Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI), which oversees

hospital construction. Today, Da Veiga says, dozens of pieces of equipment meet the agency’s requirements. He credits both the evolution of California’s regulations and the market’s response to growing demand for low-carbon technologies. “I think the market has been compelled to develop new technology to support that,” he says. As those technologies become more widely available, the business and operational case for electrification becomes stronger. UCI Health is already looking beyond Irvine. At its main campus in Orange County, the organization has a long-term plan to transition its centralized steam plant to a decentralized, electrified model. But given the campus’s roughly 1.4 million square feet, that transformation will take time and significant investment. “We have a path forward,” Da Veiga says. The organization’s decarbonization plan establishes a pathway toward becoming fossil-fuel-free by 2045, with individual construction, renovation and equipment decisions aligned with that goal. For Da Veiga, the transition requires thinking decades ahead. Every air handler, chiller and other major piece of equipment represents an opportunity to either advance or hinder that future. “That’s really our biggest future challenge,” he says, “decentralizing what we have here in Orange.”

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

Preparing for the Unpredictable Hurricane season is a fact of life for healthcare organizations along the Gulf Coast and in South Florida – but the lessons learned from storm preparation increasingly apply to a much broader range of disruptions, from cyberattacks to manufacturer shutdowns. In this issue, we look at how two health systems build resilience into their supply chains long before a crisis hits. At Baptist Health South Florida, Chris Sanchez, Director of Sustainability and Resilience, describes how tracking hazard-flagged inventory, vetting vendor continuity plans and embedding preparedness into weekly operations has turned storm readiness into an everyday habit. At BayCare Health System, Chief Supply Chain Officer

Ron Colaguori explains why resilience is a continuous journey rather than a checklist – one built on supplier transparency, preapproved substitutions and visibility deep into the supply chain. Together, their experiences show that the same playbook developed for hurricanes – inventory visibility, strong vendor relationships and cross-functional coordination – is becoming the foundation for handling disruptions of every kind.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

See what’s possible Distributors and self-distributing health systems now have complete transparency of their Dukal products’ from purchase order to delivery. Product Assigned at the Factory Level Product Tracking at the Item Level Compatible Excel Reporting Automated Communication Worldwide Tracking

Scan here to learn more or visit dukal.info/insight

Dukal is working with healthcare professionals around the world in manufacturing and supply chain solutions, to mitigate disruptions that impact business and patient health. Helping you manage everything from product to patient.

> Learn more at dukal.info/insight

PREPARING FOR THE UNPREDICTABLE

“Every time there’s something developing off the coast of Africa, we perk up our ears and follow it on a daily basis,” Colaguori says. Technology has made that monitoring easier, with automated updates replacing the days of manually checking multiple websites for radar and storm information. But technology is only one piece of a resilient supply chain. The bigger lesson, Colaguori says, is that resilience isn’t a destination or a checklist. It’s an ongoing process that requires visibility into the supply chain, strong relationships with suppliers, contingency plans, adequate inventory and, perhaps most importantly, a team prepared to respond when the unexpected happens.

A Deeper Understanding Knowing where products, components and raw materials come from is only part of the equation. Health systems also need suppliers to be transparent when trouble is ahead.

Working for a health system based on the Gulf Coast, Ron Colaguori, Chief Supply Chain Officer for BayCare Health System, knows the stakes. The Tampa, Clearwater and St. Petersburg area has historically avoided the worst of many storms, but recent hurricanes have underscored the region’s vulnerability. For BayCare, preparation means keeping a close eye on developing weather systems and being ready to move quickly when conditions change.

Ron Colaguori, Chief Supply Chain Officer, BayCare Health System

Building resilience before the disruption BayCare’s hurricane preparation starts with making sure hospitals have enough supplies to operate after the storm passes. Because the health system may not be able to deliver immediately after the storm, safety inventory has to be positioned in advance before approaching storm winds prohibit trucks from safely being on the roads. That preparation can put significant pressure on BayCare’s self-distribution model. As a storm approaches, nightly orders at the distribution center may double, while employees are also dealing with preparations for their own homes and families. But Colaguori sees storm preparation as just one part of a larger approach to resilience.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

New ClearPetra 2.0 – Now 25% Thinner* – Enhanced Steering – Intuitive Suction Control

Scan the QR code to learn more

Copyright © 2026 KARL STORZ. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks are the property of KARL STORZ SE & Co. KG unless otherwise noted. For US use only. It is recommended to check the suitability of the product for the intended procedure prior to use. Caution: Federal (USA) law restricts this device to sale by or on the order of physician. The ClearPetra trademark is owned by Well Lead Medical Co., Ltd.

97137055 URO 1 1.0 us 07/2026/A-E-US

*Compared to ClearPetra 1.0

PREPARING FOR THE UNPREDICTABLE

“I think it’s obviously a moving target. It’s a journey,” he says. “I don’t think you can check off a couple of things and say, ‘Yeah, we’re resilient.’ You can never predict everything that could happen.” For BayCare, that journey includes maintaining its own inventory through a consolidated service center and developing close relationships with manufacturers. The health system also takes a deliberate approach to critical supplies, determining specific sourcing strategies, setting appropriate inventory levels and establishing pre-approved substitutions before a disruption occurs. “If we’re targeting an average of 30 to 45 days of inventory for most SKUs, but something is extremely critical, maybe we’re going to carry 60 days or more,” Colaguori says. “It depends on multiple risk factors related to the product.” The goal is to avoid making critical decisions in the middle of a crisis. If a product becomes unavailable, having an approved substitute already identified allows the supply chain team to move quickly rather than beginning the evaluation process from scratch. “For those critical supplies, we try to have pre-approved substitutions,” he says. “If something happens in a particular product category, we don’t have to work through a process of identifying what we could potentially use. We already know what the substitute is.” Visibility is another key component. Colaguori points to global event monitoring and supply chain mapping as ways to

A supplier may have multiple plants, for example, but if 85% of production comes from one facility and the other two have limited capabilities, the apparent redundancy may not provide much protection.

identify potential disruptions before they affect operations. Knowing where products are manufactured – down to the specific plant – can help supply chain leaders understand whether an event in a particular country could affect their organization. The next step is bringing that information together through enterprise-wide, real-time inventory visibility and a “control tower” that can combine data from systems such as the ERP, warehouse management system, EHR, point-ofuse inventory systems, EDI and contract management. Adding AI capabilities could further strengthen that approach by helping organizations forecast demand and identify potential disruptions sooner. The objective is simple: give supply chain teams the information and options they need to act before a disruption becomes an emergency.

Resilience beyond the storm Emergency preparedness isn’t limited to hurricanes, floods or other physical events. For Colaguori, cybersecurity is an increasingly important part of business continuity planning – particularly because an organization doesn’t have to be directly attacked to feel the impact. “We need to be prepared to run without our systems for 30 to 60 days,” he says. “It’s a scary prospect, but a lot of organizations have worked through it.” The risk can also extend deep into the supply chain. A cyberattack on a supplier can disrupt its ability to manufacture or deliver products, creating significant

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

The reason our IV bags aren’t made with DEHP is clear. Over 40 years ago, B. Braun recognized the environmental and patient risks of toxic chemicals like DEHP and PVC and was the first medical device manufacturer to remove them from many products. DEHP, which is used to soften PVC, can leach into IV fluids, potentially putting patients at risk. Protect your patients and the planet with a full line of IV bags not made with DEHP or PVC.

PREPARING FOR THE UNPREDICTABLE

supply challenges for a health system even if its own systems remain operational. Preparing for those scenarios requires more than technology. Colaguori points to experienced supply chain professionals who have developed playbooks and systematic processes for responding to different types of disruptions. “Having a great team makes all the difference in the world,” he says.

Looking beyond the four walls Business continuity doesn’t stop with an organization’s own operations. Colaguori says it extends throughout the supply chain, which means understanding how suppliers and manufacturers would respond when disruptions occur. “We want to understand how concentrated their production is at a particular site,” Colaguori says. During business reviews and RFPs or RFQs, his team looks for both manufacturing and geographic redundancy. A supplier may have multiple plants, for example, but if 85% of production comes from one facility and the other two have limited capabilities, the apparent redundancy may not provide much protection. The review goes beyond manufacturing. Colaguori’s team considers where products are sterilized, where distribution centers are located and where the raw materials and components are produced. They also want to know whether suppliers have raw materials secured contractually, how much buffer and safety stock they maintain, and how much finished product is stored within a reasonable distance of their facilities.

Emergency management professionals typically lead the process, overseeing training, drills and tabletop exercises. But they cannot develop an effective plan in isolation.

Allocation plans are another important consideration. Suppliers should have formal policies for managing disruptions and determining how allocation decisions will be handled when supply is constrained. But perhaps the most important factor is communication. “It’s one of the biggest things we talk to suppliers about because we’ve had experiences where nobody wants to share bad news,” Colaguori says. Suppliers may hesitate to communicate the severity of a disruption, telling customers they expect a problem to last two weeks when it ultimately stretches to six. For a healthcare organization, that delay can eliminate valuable time to find alternatives.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

“If there’s going to be bad news, we need to know as soon as possible,” he says. “That whole transparency piece is critical.”

Developing a plan The best emergency plans, Colaguori says, are built with a broad view of the organization and with input from the people who will have to execute those plans when a crisis occurs. Emergency management professionals typically lead the process, overseeing training, drills and tabletop exercises. But they cannot develop an effective plan in isolation. “When you think about all the different things we do in an organization, you have to make sure that, from a planning and emergency perspective, all of those functions can continue to operate effectively,” Colaguori says. That means bringing operators from across the health system to the table, including community emergency response staff, medical and nursing leaders, information technology and information security. Supply chain, naturally, has a significant role because it supports virtually every function of the organization. That includes supply chain leadership, distribution, procurement, value analysis, contracting, planning and production. Other stakeholders are equally important. Infection prevention, for example, needs to be involved when emergency conditions require substitute products. Any alternative still needs to meet the organization’s clinical and safety criteria.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

Other stakeholders are equally important. Infection prevention, for example, needs to be involved when emergency conditions require substitute products.

The need for broad participation reflects Colaguori’s early experience in healthcare. As a college student, he was interested in medicine and began cancer research at a large hospital. The experience shifted his focus toward healthcare administration. “The reason was that this huge hospital seemed almost like a city,” he says. “You had all these different departments doing their own thing, but working together to take care of patients.” That same interconnectedness makes emergency planning an organization-wide responsibility. A core team can develop the framework, Colaguori says, but the plan ultimately needs to be “vetted” with the customers and departments who depend on it. “Every department is critical.”

Key Takeaways ` Resilience is an ongoing process, not a checklist, requiring continuous monitoring, planning, visibility and adaptation to emerging risks. ` Preparation means making critical decisions before a crisis, including positioning inventory, identifying substitutes and developing contingency plans for high-risk supplies. ` Supply chain resilience extends beyond the health system, making supplier transparency, manufacturing redundancy, raw-material security and clear allocation plans essential. ` Effective emergency planning requires the entire organization, bringing supply chain, clinical, IT, emergency management and other key stakeholders together to ensure every department can continue operating.

Sponsored

Henry Schein

You Can’t Manage What You Can’t See The readiness gap hiding across your network.

to grow 20% over the next decade

When a Local Process Becomes a Network Problem

— nearly three times the projected

A process that works for one location

growth of inpatient care.1 As health

may not scale across 50 or 100.

Outpatient volumes are projected

of our locations without contacting each site individually?

` Where does variation exist? Are sites following consistent processes

systems expand across ASCs,

When medication management,

for medication expirations, replenish-

urgent care centers, physician

equipment maintenance, safety testing,

ment, equipment inspections, service

offices, and other outpatient

and documentation depend on individual

and documentation?

settings, preparedness and

staff or manual reminders, variation is

` Is accountability clear?

compliance can quickly become

inevitable. Without centralized visibility,

Who owns readiness locally — and

harder to manage at scale.

leaders may not know where gaps exist

who owns oversight and escalation

Emergency medications require expiration tracking and replenishment.

until a medication is needed, an inspection

across the network?

` Where are we relying on

is missed, or equipment is unavailable.

Medical equipment requires inspection,

The answer is not to manage every

maintenance, safety testing, and docu-

task centrally. It is to create infrastructure

Identify spreadsheets, calendar remind-

mentation. These are different respon-

that makes preparedness visible, consis-

ers, and individual staff knowledge that

sibilities, but both are often managed

tent, and accountable.

through decentralized, manual processes that limit network-wide visibility.

manual processes?

could create vulnerabilities.

That means establishing common ex-

` Can we identify exceptions before

pectations, defining ownership, standard-

they become gaps?

For IDN supply chain leaders, the

izing processes, and identifying excep-

Can leaders see what is expired, approach-

question is: Can you see and sustain pre-

tions. For emergency medications, that

ing expiration, backordered, overdue

paredness and compliance across every

may include expiration monitoring and

for inspection or out of service?

point of care?

replenishment. For medical equipment, it may include inspections, maintenance,

Emergency readiness should not be

“As health systems

safety testing, service records, and com-

something a health system discovers site

expand across more sites

pliance documentation.

by site. With greater visibility, standard-

of care, the challenge isn’t

Automation and centralized informa-

ization and accountability, supply chain

simply making sure each

tion can reduce manual work while giving

leaders can move from reacting to gaps to

location is prepared.

leaders a clearer view of where attention

managing readiness proactively.

It’s creating the visibility

is needed.

and consistency to know

Scan the QR codes to explore emergency preparedness and compliance solutions from Henry Schein Medical.

that the entire network can identify and address to the test.”

Evaluate Your Preparedness and Compliance Posture

– Brian Heyndrickx, Vice President,

Start by asking five questions:

Health Systems and Strategic Accounts,

` Do we have network-wide visibility?

gaps before an emergency puts that readiness

Henry Schein Medical. 1

Can we determine the readiness status

Source: Vizient, 2026 Impact of Change® Forecast. Outpatient volumes are projected to grow 20% from 2026–2036, compared with 7% growth in inpatient discharges.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

Build a a More More Prepared, Prepared, Build

Compliant Network Network Compliant

Across ASCs, urgent care centers, physician offices, and other Across ASCs, urgent care centers, offices, andare other sites, emergency medications andphysician medical equipment sites, medications and site-level medical equipment often emergency managed through separate, processes.are often managed through separate, site-level processes. Henry Schein Medical brings together solutions that help Henry Medical brings together solutions that help health Schein systems support preparedness and compliance across health systems support preparedness and compliance both emergency medications and medical equipment. across both emergency medications and medical equipment.

HealthFirst® HealthFirst® STAT KIT® STAT KIT® Pre-assembled emergency Pre-assembled emergency medical kits with essential medical kits with essential medications, devices, and medications, devices, and equipment to help prepare equipment to help prepare sites for common medical sites for common medical emergencies. emergencies.

Greater visibility. Greater visibility.

SCAN QR CODE FOR SCAN QR CODE FOR EQUIPMENT REPAIR EQUIPMENT REPAIR

OnTraq™ OnTraq™ Visibility and automation for Visibility and automation for emergency medication and emergency medication and crash cart management, crash cart management, including expiration dates, including expiration dates, lot numbers, backorders, and lot numbers, backorders, and replenishment activity. replenishment activity.

More consistent More consistent processes. processes.

EMSAR® EMSAR® Medical equipment service Medical equipment service and asset-management and asset-management support that helps strengthen support that helps strengthen preparedness and compliance preparedness and compliance through inspections, safety through inspections, safety testing, preventive maintenance, testing, preventive maintenance, documentation, and uptime. documentation, and uptime.

Stronger preparedness Stronger preparedness and compliance. and compliance.

SCAN QR CODE FOR SCAN QR CODE FOR MEDICAL EMERGENCY MEDICAL EMERGENCY READINESS SOLUTIONS READINESS SOLUTIONS

Discover Henry Schein Medical’s preparedness and compliance solutions. Discover Henry Schein Medical’s preparedness and compliance solutions. © 2026 Henry Schein, Inc. No copying without permission. Not responsible for typographical errors. 26MS5447 © 2026 Henry Schein, Inc. No copying without permission. Not responsible for typographical errors. 26MS5447



GPOs

Cultivating GPO Progress For What May Lurk Around The Corner Companies must balance core mission with market complexity, dynamics. BY R. DANA BARLOW

Editor’s note: The following is second in a multipart series. To read the first story in the series, visit www.jhconline.com for the September 2026 digital issue. Hospitals and other healthcare provider organizations face myriad challenges, hurdles, roadblocks and speedbumps that can impact operations, and they frequently look to group purchasing organizations (GPOs) for guidance – from consulting to contracting to staffing and workflow. These opportunities and the plethora of options simply were not available 116 years ago when the concept of cooperative buying, the forerunner of today’s group purchasing, took root

in New York and within two decades spread throughout the country as a city hospital council or state hospital association service or through third-party companies. Through dues or fees, hospitals paid for access to bulk-buying or volumebased purchasing contracts for a growing number of commodities, goods and services, succeeding among the staples and then expanding outward to the clinical, medical and surgical devices, equipment and products. Past mid-20th century, however, entrepreneurial thinkers from outside the industry as well as from within hospital and GPO operations ventured out, launching varying business models that expanded product and service contract offerings and a burgeoning number of service extensions that addressed administrative, clinical, financial and operational needs. These spanned labor and workforce management, data management, information technology, equipment and technology management and revenue cycle operations, among others. Some even invested in manufacturing and distribution companies to a degree. In fact, back in the 1980s, one prominent GPO tried to merge with a large supplier in a maneuver that curdled competitive and legal minds. What if GPOs were to veer away from offering administrative, clinical, financial, informational and operational services as a healthcare Swiss Army knife and instead return to the basics from which they emerged – offering product and purchased service contracts that may be more effectively and efficiently bound?

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

Four seasoned healthcare supply chain executives with hospital, GPO and integrated delivery network (IDN) experience remain mixed about the feasibility.

Re-potting the roots Some argue that GPO operations merely reflect what’s happening in the marketplace today, much of which didn’t exist more than a century earlier. “There are clear advantages to maintaining focus on the core mission of helping providers achieve value through scale, contract management and purchasing efficiency,” acknowledged Bruce Radcliff, President, Supply Chain Services, Premier Inc. “Those functions remain essential and continue to generate significant savings across healthcare. “However, the healthcare industry has become substantially more complex than it was even a decade ago,” he continued. “Providers are managing labor shortages, supply disruptions and financial pressures while also facing increasing clinical demands and reimbursement challenges. As a result, many organizations are looking for partners that can help them understand how supply chain decisions affect not only procurement, but also clinical outcomes and financial performance. The opportunity is not choosing between purchasing and services. It’s ensuring that any expanded capabilities remain tightly aligned with helping providers improve performance, resilience and patient care.” Before Premier, Radcliff spent more than a decade at Advocate Aurora Health leading supply chain operations.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

“Since GPOs work with large networks of providers and suppliers, they often have a broader view of what’s happening across the market.”

Steve Downey, Chief Supply Chain and Patient Services Officer, Cleveland Clinic, urges caution that blasting back to the past can be dangerous. “Health systems have long recognized that progress is difficult at a scale of 1,” Downey noted. “Contracting was the starting point, but collaborative work expanded naturally from there – clinical benchmarking, shared learning, education, networking and broader strategic alignment across the industry. That evolution created real value. Going back to basics removes that collaborative work that’s valuable. This may lead to limiting innovation and reducing the shared learning that helps systems solve common challenges more effectively.” Prior to Cleveland Clinic, Downey spent nearly a decade at Vizient and Excelerate in leading supply chain operations and consulting. John Strong, a veteran healthcare supply chain executive with experience in the hospital, distribution services, GPO and consulting segments, views those halcyon days with a degree of fondness because simpler activities can still achieve significant cost savings. Strong lists more pros than cons in optimizing the fundamentals. On the “pro” side, “‘Price at the pump’ simplifies many things: Hospital cost accounting; reduction in supplier and supply chain management staff to manage rebates, and greater value overall,” Strong said. “There’s an increase in competition stemming from looking at ‘clean’ prices without having to worry about rebates.



GPOs

Price tiers could remain, but getting rid of rebates could be a huge factor in taking friction out of the supply chain and ease the understanding of ‘total supplier value.’” Strong also foresees “easier bid processes for both GPOs and their members, with far less analysis required,” that can “potentially lower prices resulting from less administrative burden on the part of suppliers.” Embracing the fundamentals also could translate into a “reduction of contract complexity where certain levels of performance are required across a large section of products to obtain a rebate in the first place,” he said. “This is a wonderful tool to encourage better compliance, but a management nightmare unless a GPO provides guidance on how a member is tracking toward their goal(s).” This could generate “lower overhead for everyone because the management and analytic burden would be sharply reduced,” he added. Strong admits that two key “cons” keep the “pros” in check. He points to “supplier pushback from exposing pricing in the market,” as one and that “some folks [at the hospital or health system] view rebates and dividends as revenue,” he indicated. “Those would stop, and supply chain management would become “just” an overhead administrative function, where it should be. The view these are somehow “revenue” is wrong, in

my opinion. The government says these [rebates and dividends] are discounts on the cost of supplies and drugs. I respectfully disagree with those who look at these as revenue.” The ability to compare product prices was a concept that fueled provider interest in the proposed Common Category Database in the 1980s but ultimately was doused by suppliers that feared sacrificing their brands and competitive advantage. Whether the onset of artificial intelligence (AI) resurrects the debate or takes the opportunities in new directions remains to be seen, according to Strong. Much depends on the accuracy of the data AI accesses, compiles and uses. Still, volume-oriented contracting remains the lifeblood of a GPO, Strong agrees. He identifies three key assets: “The contracts, the members [organizations] and the people who are part of the members,” he said. “They’re the core pieces of the puzzle. It’s still all about the relationships.”

Managing the runners With GPOs, by and large, funded through such fiscal mechanisms as contract administrative fees, rebates, share backs and dividends, how might they conceivably and reasonably update these mechanisms in the latter half of the 2020s as the market barrels into the next decade? What about implementing something completely different? Strong recalls his work at Consorta, which in part led to its merger with HealthTrust. Among the highlights were high-compliance contracts with

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

ENGINEERED ENGINEERED ENGINEERED FOR BETTER FOR FORBETTER BETTER

CARE CARE CARE R E C IS IO NN PP RP ER CE IS C IIO S INO O S IT ITO N IN GG PP OP SO I TS IIO INO IN IGN

E R F O R M A N C EE PP EP RE FR OF RO MR AM NA CN EC

BETTER CARE STARTS WITH BETTER ACCESS BETTER BETTER CARE CARE STARTS STARTS WITH WITH BETTER BETTER ACCESS ACCESS

Oakworks Medical tables are engineered around the needs professionals Oakworks Oakworks Medical Medical tables tables are are engineered engineered around around the the needs needs ofofhealthcare ofhealthcare healthcare professionals professionals and their patients. From positioning and imaging access and everyday and and their their patients. patients. From From positioning positioning and and imaging imaging access access totostability tostability stability and and everyday everyday durability, each product for the demands clinical environment. durability, durability, each each product product isisbuilt isbuilt built for for the the demands demands ofofits ofitsits clinical clinical environment. environment.

ULTRASOUND TABLES ULTRASOUND ULTRASOUND TABLES TABLES Table configurations support Table Table Table Table configurations configurations configurations configurations support support support support ergonomics and patient access, ergonomics ergonomics ergonomics ergonomics and and and and patient patient patient patient access, access, access, access, enabling more comfortable enabling enabling enabling enabling more more more more comfortable comfortable comfortable comfortable scanning positions. scanning scanning scanning scanning positions. positions. positions. positions.

www.oakworksmed.com www.oakworksmed.com www.oakworksmed.com www.oakworksmed.com www.oakworksmed.com

DISCOVER THE DISCOVER DISCOVER THE THE OAKWORKS OAKWORKS OAKWORKS DIFFERENCE DIFFERENCE DIFFERENCE

717-759-3146 717-759-3146 717-759-3146 717-759-3146 717-759-3146

C-ARM TABLES C-ARM C-ARM TABLES TABLES Radiolucent table designs Radiolucent Radiolucent Radiolucent Radiolucent table table table table designs designs designs designs provide the access and provide provide provide provide the the the the access access access access and and and and flexibility needed for pain flexibility flexibility flexibility flexibility needed needed needed needed for for for for pain pain pain pain management procedures. management management management management procedures. procedures. procedures. procedures.

medsales@oakworks.com medsales@oakworks.com medsales@oakworks.com medsales@oakworks.com medsales@oakworks.com

MADE THE USA MADE MADE MADE MADE IN ININ IN THE THE IN THE THE USA USA USA USA

*With imported parts. *With *With *With *With imported imported imported imported parts. parts. parts. parts.



GPOs

single-source vendors. “You give back as much as you can after taking the administrative costs off. You don’t build things in the GPO and bear the overhead for the pure price play of getting the contract administrative fees back to the customer. We were returning 80% cash. Cash!,” he said. Strong acknowledges, however, that the growth of regional purchasing groups within the national leaders has gained a considerable foothold as they piggyback their contracts from the parent contracts. Still, he cautions that if these “RPGs” – at least one of which boasts members in 19 states – become too large then they either morph into groups within a supergroup or even competitors to the national parent. But Strong doubts the feasibility of RPGs advancing to national and competitive status with the parent GPOs. Instead, he’s been watching what a growing number of prominent medical technology companies, which have been long-time GPO supporters, have been percolating of late that may raise eyebrows. “These companies are building digital systems that work with the hospitals in using their products,” he indicated. “They follow the patient and the patient’s journey from preparation for surgery or a cath lab procedure with recommendations and best demonstrated practices, followed by the surgical procedure, post-discharge instructions and then following the patient for up to 90 days. Products and patients get blended together for better preparation, procedure and outcomes.

“They also are bringing the hospital supply chain teams in to consult on making sure that the appropriate products are being used in pre-surgical, surgical and post-surgical procedures so that we can help you follow the patient, track their progress and reduce readmissions and waste,” he continued. “They’re working to reduce process costs to the extent possible and make this a frictionless supply chain. That’s the future.” Ultimately, Strong predicts that “supply chain will become an even bigger contributor to the patient’s journey in a hospital,” but in a vastly different way that extends well beyond the GPO-negotiated patientspecific product bins from distributors and manufacturers. He sees the suppliers themselves “showing the hospitals what is needed throughout the patient’s journey – from preparation to surgery to discharge and beyond. There is a huge change coming, but this being healthcare, it will take some years.” This begs the question of why the GPOs, if not the provider supply chain teams themselves, aren’t initiating this. “The providers can’t afford to build this stuff on their own,” Strong noted. “They can’t bring in a Bain or McKinsey or others and do all of this. So these suppliers are choosing to come in alongside the hospital customers directly to make this happen to solidify brand usage but also utilize care paths, which have been shown for 20 years to reduce readmissions, reduce patient harm and so forth. They want to partner with supply chain and with the doctors directly.”

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

Culling the weeds Within the last quarter-century, healthcare providers and suppliers, as well as GPOs, have bobbed and weaved through a litany of crises and disasters, ranging from geopolitical issues (e.g., tariffs, terrorism, etc.), climate/weather-related phenomena (e.g., floods, hurricanes, storms, tornadoes, etc.), health-related calamities (e.g., epidemics, pandemics, etc.), technology threats (e.g., cybersecurity, hacking, power outages, etc.) and business/corporate-related maneuvering (e.g., mergers and acquisitions, production interruptions and shortages, etc.). What role the GPOs can and should play within this realm continues to be debated. “One of the most valuable things a GPO can do during a crisis is help providers and suppliers see what’s coming and respond quickly,” Premier’s Radcliff asserted. “Whether the challenge is a natural disaster, pandemic, product shortage, cybersecurity event or geopolitical disruption, healthcare organizations need timely information and practical guidance. “Since GPOs work with large networks of providers and suppliers, they often have a broader view of what’s happening across the market,” he continued. “That visibility can help organizations identify potential risks earlier, evaluate alternative sourcing options and make more informed decisions before disruptions affect patient care. In the future, technologies such as advanced analytics and AI will play an even greater role in helping organizations anticipate and navigate these challenges.”

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

“The goal is not simply to react faster. It is to build a more connected, transparent and resilient supply chain that helps providers maintain continuity of care under pressure.”

Cleveland Clinic’s Downey credits GPOs for their panoramic views of the market. “GPOs can be a great many-to-one voice precisely because they have visibility across a broad, diverse membership,” he indicated. “During a crisis, individual providers can’t efficiently coordinate with hundreds of suppliers, and suppliers can’t respond meaningfully to thousands of independent hospital requests. GPOs can bridge that gap by facilitating the flow of critical information. The challenge is when GPO personnel speak on behalf of all members when the membership is broad and complex. Generally, those situations are best handled by assembling multi-client councils that have representation from various segments.” Simrit Sandhu, President, Spend Management, Vizient, urges GPOs to set an example for supply chain activities and behaviors. “Resiliency has to become part of how the supply chain operates every day, not something the industry turns to during a crisis,” she said. “For Vizient, the opportunity is connecting supplier intelligence, contract terms, risk signals, inventory protection, substitution pathways and execution support so providers have options before disruption becomes a patient care issue.” Some crises can overwhelm contracting. “A strong contract is not enough if the product is unavailable, the substitute is unclear or the workflow cannot adjust quickly,” Sandhu continued.



GPOs

“Programs like Vizient Reserve and Novaplus Enhanced Supply Reserve help prevent disruption from widening the gap between planned value and realized performance by protecting access to strategically positioned inventory of essential medications and supplies. These programs give providers time to make informed decisions instead of reactive ones. Today, they protect inventory representing more than 180 million doses of essential medications and more than 3 million units of medical supplies.” Sandhu previously led supply chain operations at Cleveland Clinic for nearly 15 years.

Editor’s Note: Next edition, the expert GPO quartet explores how GPOs can impact data transparency, expansion to remote care facilities and technology adoption and implementation.

Key Takeaways ` GPOs deliver the most value when they balance their core contracting mission with expanded services that help providers navigate workforce shortages, financial pressures, supply disruptions and increasingly complex care environments. ` Healthcare supply chain leaders agree that collaboration, data sharing and strategic partnerships are more important than ever, warning that returning to a narrow contracting-only model could limit innovation and shared learning. ` The future of healthcare supply chain will extend beyond purchasing, with suppliers, GPOs and providers using AI, analytics and patient journey data to improve outcomes, reduce waste and create a more connected care experience. ` As healthcare faces more frequent disruptions – from natural disasters to cyberattacks and shortages – GPOs will play an increasingly vital role in strengthening supply chain resilience through market intelligence, alternative sourcing and proactive inventory strategies

“The goal is not simply to react faster. It is to build a more connected, transparent and resilient supply chain that helps providers maintain continuity of care under pressure,” she added. Strong credits Vizient for working with distributors and their members to have safety stock held at the distributor facilities. “This is a good idea, but in practice you also need to recognize that there is a cost associated with this practice,” he warned. “This ‘extra’ inventory is costly to distributors, and those costs get passed along to the customer. You also need to consider what the ‘right’ amount and type of these products are. Keep in mind that during COVID all the safety stock in the world would not have prevented the shortages that we saw – and the bullwhip effect when the pandemic eased, and everyone was caught with too much of certain supplies – like isolation gowns.” Other options include contracts whereby the distributor manages the provider warehouse or larger consolidated service center as an extension of its own operations. “In the good old days, hospital purchasing agents would get in trouble with the CFO if they held too much inventory,” Strong recalled. “You can pencil out self-distribution and safety stock to justify these things any way you want, but the bottom line is that some of these practices involve tremendous overhead and holding costs as well. The U.S. healthcare supply chain has so many [bandages] on it that their sure weight is bogging everything down.”

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting



HIDA

Leveraging Reimbursement to Promote Domestic Manufacturing A resilient medical supply chain depends on a strategic mix of domestic and global sourcing to ensure healthcare providers have the products they need when they need them. As highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, there are critical medical products for which the United States does not have meaningful domestic manufacturing capacity. Policymakers are working to change that. The federal government has deployed a range of tools – such as tax incentives, investments through the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), and initiatives aimed at strengthening the nation’s medical manufacturing base. Now, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) considering reimbursement policy as way to incentivize healthcare providers to purchase U.S.-made products. Reimbursement policy is influential in healthcare purchasing decisions. Hospitals operate under tight financial constraints and must carefully balance product quality, availability, and cost. Because products manufactured in the United States often carry higher production costs, providers are more likely to purchase lower-cost alternatives produced overseas. CMS has tried to incentivize U.S.made medical products through reimbursement, providing higher

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

reimbursement for domestically produced N95 respirators in 2023. This effort required hospitals to purchase eligible U.S.-made masks and document the difference in cost compared to imported products. The program saw MAGGIE DAVIS, limited uptake, largely due to the adminDIRECTOR OF istrative burden and narrow product GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, eligibility requirements. HEALTH INDUSTRY This year, CMS is revisiting the issue DISTRIBUTORS and gathering substantial feedback on ASSOCIATION how Medicare-participating hospitals could strengthen supply chain resilience through the purchase of domestic personal protective equipment (PPE) and essential medicines. The agency first sought input on how to create a program that minimizes administrative burden while still verifying that products are manufactured in the United States. After receiving more than 150 comments from providers, distributors, manufacturers, and other stakeholders, CMS is seeking additional feedback on how it would operationalize such a policy. CMS is considering a voluntary separate payment under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) for hospitals that purchase domestic PPE and essential medicines. Although there is not a formal proposal yet, the agency is looking for feedback on how to best calculate the price differential between domestic and non-domestic products. Questions once limited to preparedness and supply chain discussions are now appearing in some of healthcare’s most influential reimbursement regulations. The key question ahead is whether Medicare payments will become a meaningful tool for advancing U.S. medical manufacturing and supply chain resilience.



TRENDS

Healthcare in Motion Vizient’s Impact of Change report projects significant growth in outpatient, home health and post-acute care, creating new opportunities and challenges for health systems and supply chain leaders.

Healthcare providers should prepare for continued migration of care to ambulatory settings, according to Vizient’s recently released 2026 Impact of Change® forecast. The report projects outpatient volumes will increase 20% over the next decade, compared with 7% growth in inpatient discharges, as aging demographics, rising rates of chronic disease and advances in medical technology continue to reshape care delivery.

The forecast also projects home health volumes will grow 13% over the next five years, while adult emergency department visits are expected to increase 6% over the next decade as more patients delay preventive care because of reduced insurance coverage. Artificial intelligence, virtual care and other emerging technologies are also expected to play a growing role in how health systems plan capacity and deliver care. The continued migration of care from hospitals to outpatient settings is being driven by several powerful forces that are reshaping the healthcare landscape, according to Brianna Motley, Vice President & General Manager, Vizient, leading the Strategy Intelligence & Research function. “It’s absolutely multifactorial,” Motley said. “As we put together our Impact of Change projections, there are several different layers that go into the forecasting model.” At the center of those projections is the nation’s aging population. Adults age 65 and older account for a growing share of healthcare utilization, particularly as more people live with multiple chronic conditions that require ongoing care. While these patients continue to drive demand for inpatient and emergency services, they are also contributing to increased use of outpatient care. Beyond demographics, economic and consumer forces are accelerating the shift. Health plans continue to encourage providers to perform procedures in lower-cost ambulatory settings, while

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

patients enrolled in high-deductible health plans have become more cost-conscious and are seeking convenient alternatives to hospital-based care. “There is increasing pressure to move procedure volume to lower-cost sites of care,” Motley said. “Consumers are more accountable for how healthcare dollars are spent. They don’t necessarily want to go to the hospital if they don’t have to, and they’re looking for convenience.”

Clinical considerations While advances in surgical technology and medical devices continue to expand outpatient care, Motley believes pharmaceutical innovation may have the greatest influence on healthcare utilization over the next decade. “The pace at which pharmaceutical innovation is accelerating is notable,” she said, pointing to advances in artificial intelligence that are helping researchers move through clinical trials more efficiently and bring new therapies to market faster. One of the clearest examples is the growing use of GLP-1 medications for diabetes and obesity. As these therapies become more widely available, they are changing not only how diseases are treated but also where patients receive care. Motley noted that health systems are already seeing declines in bariatric surgery volumes as more patients opt for medication-based treatment. At the same time, those patients often require ongoing monitoring and follow-up, creating sustained demand for outpatient visits.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

“What’s really exciting for us as we project demand forward is understanding how one innovation can impact where demand presents and what type of demand presents across different sites of care,” Motley said. The effects extend beyond diabetes and obesity. Emerging evidence suggests these therapies could influence cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions, while breakthroughs in cancer treatments, including cell and gene therapies, promise to further reshape care delivery. “From a health system standpoint, it’s important to understand not just how demand is presenting differently today, but how that will change over the next decade and how organizations need to adapt their strategies to be prepared,” Motley said.

Revenue and resource allocation The migration of care to outpatient settings is also reshaping how health systems think about revenue, capacity and resource allocation. While ambulatory services continue to generate a growing share of healthcare revenue, hospitals must simultaneously prepare for a more complex inpatient population. “I would break it down into inpatient and outpatient,” Motley said. “If care shifts to outpatient settings, the consequence is that what remains in the inpatient setting is higher acuity and greater complexity.” Vizient projects inpatient days will increase 14% over the next decade, even as overall inpatient discharges grow at a much slower rate. The reason, Motley explained, is that patients who remain

Brianna Motley, Vice President, General Manager, Vizient

For healthcare supply chain leaders, the continued migration of care beyond the hospital walls presents both operational challenges and strategic opportunities.



TRENDS

hospitalized will generally require longer stays and more intensive care. That translates into greater demand for clinical staff, specialized supplies, equipment and redesigned workflows to support increasingly complex cases. Meanwhile, outpatient providers face a different challenge: accommodating rapid growth in patient volume. Ambulatory surgery centers, physician offices and outpatient clinics will need to expand access as more procedures migrate from hospitals, driven by both payer incentives and consumer demand for lower-cost, more convenient care. The financial implications are already becoming apparent. Historically, hospitals relied heavily on inpatient services to generate revenue, but that balance has steadily shifted over the past decade. “We’re seeing more robust revenue growth in outpatient care,” Motley said, noting that recent industry data show outpatient revenue continuing to outpace inpatient growth. “Health systems face challenging decisions about the timing of moving procedures to outpatient settings because there can be a revenue trade-off.”

Positioned for success Despite ongoing financial pressures, Motley said some health systems are positioning themselves for long-term

success by taking a strategic approach to ambulatory care rather than trying to expand indiscriminately. “If we set that aside and think about how demand is projected to change and how systems need to adapt to appropriately capture that growth, there are systems that have robust ambulatory strategies and are able to prioritize effectively,” she said. One common characteristic among those organizations is a willingness to partner. Rather than investing capital to

Post-Acute Care Emerges as a Critical Link in Capacity Planning Vizient projects demand for post-acute services — including skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation and other transitional care settings — to increase 31% over the next decade, driven largely by an aging population and the growing prevalence of chronic disease. “To effectively and efficiently manage hospital operations, transition

care to outpatient settings, and maintain capacity, organizations need a strong network of postacute partners that can transition patients with high quality into the next level of care,” Motley said. The implications extend well beyond discharge planning. As hospitals care for sicker, more medically complex patients, delays in transferring patients

to post-acute settings can create bottlenecks throughout the health system. Patients who remain hospitalized while waiting for placement occupy beds needed for new admissions, making it more difficult for organizations to manage the projected increase in inpatient length of stay. For health system executives and supply chain leaders, the

question is increasingly strategic: Should organizations own and operate post-acute assets, or partner with outside providers? Motley said there is no universal answer, but the decision will become increasingly important as demand grows and health systems balance financial pressures with the need to create a seamless continuum of care.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

Women in Sourcing for Health Systems

Connects, develops, and elevates women leaders shaping the future of healthcare procurement and supply chains. To register for our next webinar, visit our website

WISHCouncil.org

Scan to connect



TRENDS

own every point of care across the continuum, many health systems are collaborating with physician groups, ambulatory surgery centers and other providers to expand their reach while controlling costs. Equally important is creating a connected network that keeps patients within the health system as they move between physician offices, outpatient facilities and hospitals. Motley said successful organizations also recognize that outpatient care requires a different operating model than inpatient care. Efficiency, patient access and seamless coordination are essential to preserving margins as outpatient volumes continue to climb. “Those that are able to tightly integrate ambulatory sites and components, reduce leakage, and capture and maintain consumers within their network are really well positioned,” she said.

Long-term implications For healthcare supply chain leaders, the continued migration of care beyond the hospital walls presents both operational challenges and strategic opportunities. While Motley is quick to note that she is not a supply chain specialist, she believes the trends identified in Vizient’s report have clear implications for how

Key Takeaways ` Healthcare delivery will continue shifting toward ambulatory settings, with Vizient projecting outpatient volumes to grow 20% over the next decade compared with 7% growth in inpatient discharges. ` Aging populations, chronic disease, payer pressures and consumer demand for convenience are accelerating the migration of procedures and services away from traditional hospital settings. ` Clinical innovations, including GLP-1 medications, AI-enabled research and advanced therapies, are changing not only how diseases are treated but also where patients receive care. ` Supply chain leaders must prepare for a more distributed healthcare network by improving coordination, inventory management and long-term scenario planning across multiple sites of care.

organizations manage inventory, logistics and long-term planning. “As care shifts to outpatient settings, you’re managing a more distributed network,” she said. “You’re no longer focused on distribution and management for one specific location or campus. You’re managing an entire network, and that increases complexity.” In the near term, that means ensuring the right products are available at the right location for scheduled procedures across physician offices, ambulatory surgery centers and other outpatient facilities. Looking further ahead, supply chain leaders will need to anticipate which sites of care will experience the greatest growth, what services will be delivered there and how inventory strategies must evolve to support those changes. Motley believes the same mindset applies across the healthcare enterprise. Organizations can use predictive analytics, historical utilization data and scenario planning to anticipate future demand, but success ultimately depends on how quickly leaders act on that information. As clinical innovation, artificial intelligence, payer policies and patient preferences continue to reshape care delivery, the ability to adapt may become an organization’s greatest competitive advantage. “It continues to come down to agility combined with scenario-planning capabilities,” Motley said. “Organizations that can be agile, make decisions quickly and execute effectively are simply better positioned in an environment that is changing so rapidly.”

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

Negative flu test.

NOW WHAT? When symptoms persist, a broader view can help inform what comes next. CitoCBC™ delivers a complete CBC with 5-part differential in ~8 minutes — giving you more clinical data while the patient is still in the room. Make decisions sooner. Refer with data. Keep care moving within your network.

~8-Min. Results

5-Part Differential

CLIAWaived

Keep care moving with CitoCBC™.



CLINICAL COLLABORATION

Physician-Supply Chain Partnership SMI Executive Briefing explores shifting supply chain priorities.

Despite efforts to control hospital and health system costs, goods and services remain among the largest expenses within healthcare, emphasizing the need for a more integrated and strategic approach to supply chain management.

In response, a June 2026 Executive Briefing from the SMI Physician Advisory Group examined how physician engagement is essential to achieving sustainable cost management and value creation in the supply chain. The briefing also indicates that the healthcare supply chain has continued to transform, evolving from a transactional department to a strategic healthcare partner – maturing to manage inventory and distribution while developing new skills to approach challenges with innovation. Supply chain professionals are, in fact, seeing evidence of this shift accelerating. “The biggest change is that supply chain leaders are now helping shape enterprise strategy, not just managing products and contracts. They’re involved in technology evaluation, AI, capital planning, clinical transformation and physician partnerships,” said Jane Pleasants, President, SMI. “As health systems face increasing financial pressure, leaders recognize that sustainable cost improvement comes from redesigning care and clinical decision-making – not simply negotiating lower prices.” Goods and services continue to represent the second largest expense in a hospital’s budget, outpaced only by labor, and some models project these expenses could become the top cost category in the future. According to SMI, meaningful and sustainable production, cost control and improvement is not achievable without physician engagement, underscoring the importance of shared accountability between the supply chain and physicians.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

The Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership Hall of Fame proudly inducts the Bellwether Class of 2026 at its 19th Annual Bellwether League Foundation Induction & Recognition Event (BLFIRE19) scheduled to be held at Georgia Southern University’s Presented by Bellwether League Foundation™

Armstrong Center, Savannah, GA

Monday, November 16, 2026 Bellwether Class of 2026 to be inducted:

John Bardis William A. Baum Sr. (1891-1964) Pamela L. Bryant Joseph R. Colonna Capt. Thomas R. Defibaugh, MSC, USN(RET) (1940-2019) Jay M. Kirkpatrick Deborah L. Sprindzunas Mark A. Welch, MHA

Ammer Honoree Class of 2026 to be recognized: Neil Allen

Future Famers Class of 2026 to be recognized: Megan Jarrell, MHA Javier Allan Rodriguez

Salutes all 162 healthcare supply chain innovators, pioneers and visionaries in Bellwether League Foundation’s Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership Hall of Fame. Scan the QR code to learn more details about BLFIRE19 and the 19 Bellwether Classes, 6 Ammer Honoree Classes and 12 Future Famers Classes.

Honoring Healthcare Supply Chain Leaders of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Bellwether League Foundation is a non-stock, non-profit charitable foundation, tax exempt under IRS Code Section 501(c)(3). © 2026 Bellwether League Foundation. All rights reserved.



CLINICAL COLLABORATION

Jane Pleasants, President, SMI

Bruce Hall, MD, PhD, MBA, FACS

“Bridging the gap between clinical and supply chain has been a game changer for us,” said Annie Reyes-Salgado, MBA, Vice President of Support Services at UC Davis. “It has enabled the supply chain to make better-informed decisions and deliver the right products, while ensuring that the patient remains at the center of everything we do.”

The changing healthcare landscape At the same time as the supply chain advances, traditional clinical roles within healthcare are evolving, and physicians’ understanding of the healthcare supply chain has changed. Historically, physicians and clinical departments were viewed as “customers,” with supply chain and suppliers positioned as “service providers.” The SMI briefing asserts that this distinction is no longer sufficient – providers and suppliers must now work collaboratively. “In my career, I have been fortunate to have exceptional professional colleagues in supply chain, and I have come to learn exactly how essential efficient and reliable supply chain operations are to any provider, any hospital, any health system, and thus to every patient, family and community,” said Bruce Hall, MD, PhD, MBA, FACS. “As someone who sees the high expenditures on healthcare in our country, and the growth in expenditures over time, I see resource stewardship as a professional and moral obligation.” Physicians have increasingly recognized the need for supply chain data, analytics and operational expertise to support

evidence-based decision-making, just as supply chain leaders depend on physician insight into clinical efficacy, utilization and patient impact in order to execute the best decisions.

Working in collaboration Bridging the gap between physicians and the supply chain starts with a better understanding of each other’s role in patient care. What physicians misunderstand most about the role of today’s supply chain leaders, said Dr. Hall, is how essential their expertise and partnership is, how data-driven they are, how committed they are to keeping the hospital and health system working efficiently, and how willing they are to be operational and strategic partners. “Too often, organizations approach physicians when they need approval instead of inviting them to help solve the problem,” said Pleasants. “When discussions begin with cost reduction, clinicians may see supply chain as limiting choices.” Conversely, supply chain professionals sometimes misunderstand clinicians’ priorities around how driven physicians are to put the patient first, how frustrated physicians can get when data and information aren’t accessible to inform decision making, how much pressure is on clinicians to be productive and how many activities in the health care system might feel like unnecessary administrative work. The most successful organizations approach essential supply chain decisions with patient outcome data and clinical

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

evidence. When physicians understand the supply chain, and help with the process of designing the solution, cost savings become a byproduct of better care – and any improvements are much more likely to last. “The organizations that excel have made physician collaboration part of their culture, not just a project. They rely on shared governance, transparent data and aligned goals – but they also recognize the power of physicians leading conversations with their peers,” said Pleasants. “Those peer-to-peer discussions build credibility, encourage adoption of best practices and create improvements that are both clinically meaningful and financially sustainable.”

Physician participation While hospital committees once served as the primary forum for collaboration, today’s healthcare challenges demand deeper, more continuous engagement. Effective physician engagement now requires cultural change and transparency in decision-making and a foundation of trust. “Participation is exactly how you learn that not every discussion is driven by cost, but also, how you learn just how important it is to be a steward of resources for the hospital and the community,” said Dr. Hall. “As physicians we have the privilege of spending someone else’s money, on behalf of yet someone else, and we are invested with authority and autonomy.” Dr. Hall said physicians must translate their decision-making power into an absolute obligation to be careful stewards of resources.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

“As physicians we have the privilege of spending someone else’s money, on behalf of yet someone else, and we are invested with authority and autonomy.”

“Learn what amazing experts and partners your supply chain colleagues are,” said Dr. Hall. “And internalize all that into your chosen obligation to care for others.” This perspective positions physicians not as downstream participants, but as co-leaders in shaping a clinically integrated, value-driven supply chain. Supply chain leaders, according to the briefing, can accelerate this cultural shift by focusing on three foundational actions: establishing a clinical advisory role for supply chain, improving data access, transparency and accountability and marketing the supply chain value proposition through physician partnerships. “Engagement often means asking physicians for input after a decision has largely been made. Integration means physicians are part of the process from the beginning – helping define the problem, evaluating solutions, implementing change and measuring outcomes,” said Pleasants. “That level of partnership creates trust, drives adoption and produces improvements that are both clinically meaningful and financially sustainable.” “Supply colleagues drive thousands of conversations and decisions inside every modern hospital. They deliver thousands and millions of materials, devices, and pieces of equipment to the right person in the right place, at the right time, for the right patient every day,” said Dr. Hall. “They are far beyond operational experts – they are strategic fonts of knowledge and experience who enable everything that happens every day and enable the care of every single patient.”



SHELF CONFIDENCE

Accuracy vs. Efficiency Which would you rather have? BY R. DANA BARLOW

Ever wonder how companies define the terms “intelligent” and “smart” when they use them as adjectival descriptors for their products and services? Beyond branding, marketing and sales, of course. There’s a lot of jibber-jabber about the “intelligent” supply chain, the “smart” supply chain, along with effective, efficient, reliable … the “e” this, the “i” that … you get the idea. Yet with all the emphasis and stress on intelligent this or smart that, might the exuberance over creative promotion conveniently forget or overlook something much more fundamentally essential? Like accuracy? Think about it. You can be as intelligent and smart as you claim, as effective or efficient as you want. But are your data elements correct from the very beginning? Are you accurately recording and measuring the same things with your upline and downline partners in the chain and throughout multiple chains in the provisional web?

The late Garren Hagemeier led the Healthcare Electronic Data Interchange Coalition (HEDIC) that worked to advise, educate and inform the healthcare supply chain industry on how to transmit data via EDI, particularly migrating electronic transactions from proprietary systems to value-added networks (VANs) using translation software to open EDI systems that streamlined data sharing between players directly without the need for an electronic intermediary. HEDIC was prominent industrywide until the internet and online exchanges rendered EDI as quaint as streaming did to DVDs. During the HEDIC conferences and in media interviews, Hagemeier routinely stressed that unless your data were accurate and clean from the beginning then all this information technology would enable you to transmit dirty data even faster, helping no one and improving little. Eventually, Hagemeier would retire from healthcare to serve in ministry. With his logical warning and sobering observation, Hagemeier was onto something then, and his observation has yet to be disproved. Yes, the notion that efficiency in technology just moves dirty data more rapidly wasn’t coined by him, but he was one of the more well-known evangelists – wordplay intended – preaching the gospel of accuracy. Efficiency isn’t a be-all, end-all, but without accuracy as the baseline you face serious consequences. From artificial intelligence (AI) to blockchain to integrated robotics to

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

robotic process automation (RPA), there’s seemingly no upper limit to the (cap)ability to move things faster and more efficiently. As the antithesis of the famous limbo slogan, “How low can you go?” the operational efficiency question of “How high can you go?” should make you ponder whether that’s a good thing. Granted, process efficiency can accelerate manual tasks and production, reduce (or motivate the reassignment of) and transform the workforce, slash costs long-term (once the initial investment in technology is made and depreciated).

When efficiency goes wrong Yet striving for efficiency isn’t always the be-all, end-all strategy and tactic to save your bacon. Perhaps the most macabre but overt example of this can be found in the deadliest airline disaster in United States history. Back in late May 1979, American Airlines Flight 191 was scheduled to depart Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for LAX. As the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 trijet lifted from the runway, one of its turbofan engines on the left wing detached and fell off, damaging the aircraft’s hydraulic system. For the next 31 seconds, the pilots were unable to correct and stabilize the plane, which crashed some 4,600 feet from the end of the runway. All 271 aboard were killed, along with two people on the ground. This disaster could have been worse if the pilot and co-pilot did not maintain some semblance of control in bringing

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026

But remember that AI automation starts with human behavior. What happens if (or when?) the programming or prompting may include errors or just a minor miscalculation or decimal point position?

the plane down in a field. Why? Facing north, directly to the left of the field, was a densely populated mobile home community. And directly to the left of that mobile home community was a petroleum tank farm. Federal authorities took months to ferret out a potential cause. Through exhaustive examination and research, they narrowed it to a heart-wrenching scenario rooted in the desire for maintenance crews to be “more efficient.” The manual for checking, maintaining and repairing the DC-10 engines instructs mechanics on the proper way to do it. The engines on either wing were bolted to a wraparound pylon affixed to the wing, attached by bolts. If for any reason the mechanics had to detach the engine from the wing, then they needed to remove the entire pylon assembly with the engine remaining attached to the pylon. At some point, a few enterprising mechanics determined that they could shave 20 to 30 minutes from the maintenance procedure time by detaching the engine from the pylon itself and leaving the pylon affixed to the wing. On the surface, such a step might not seem so dangerous. However, to remove and reattach the engine this way required a mechanic to drive a portable vehicle under the wing to hoist the engine in place so that the protruding connections could be bolted together. What transpired? Like a newly trained phlebotomist attempting to find a patient’s vein, they likely missed the connections a few times, frequently bumping the parts of the engine that connect to the pylon.



SHELF CONFIDENCE

So what? Well, jetliners fly high and fast to the point that the metal casing for the pylons and the engines are subjected to a number of physical forces – temperature variations, speed variations and pressure variations – from the ground to the sky. Temperature, speed and pressure variances affect the physical durability of the metal and make it brittle. Basically, the mechanics weren’t following the manufacturer’s instructions for use (IFUs) in an effort to save time and arguably to reduce costs (we can’t say for certain how they used the extra time even though efficiency-minded people will promote the idea that the extra time would be put to good use … such as providing more attention to the patient from healthcare’s perspective). Granted, there’s nothing inherently wrong in trying to accomplish something more efficiently, provided you explore as many of the consequences as possible. Think domino or butterfly effect. Throughout history we’ve witnessed mistakes made when accuracy is taken for granted, mainly by negligence rather than nefarious intentions. The online blog “The American Facts” highlighted four incidents that should leave you arching your eyebrows. 1. In 1999, Lockheed Martin designed a $125-million Mars orbiter for NASA that malfunctioned and was lost in space because the manufacturer used English measurements versus the NASA-required metric measurements, according to “The American Facts” report. 2. That same year Lockheed Martin issued a contract to a customer that was missing a comma in the sale price, costing the company $70 million for a C-130J Hercules aircraft, the report stated. 3. In 2006, an Alitalia staffer apparently forgot to include two additional zeros when he or she priced business-class tickets for a flight between Toronto and Cypress, enabling more than 500 passengers to enjoy a more than $2,500 discount until the mistake was caught and corrected, according to the report. 4. Finally, when Apple tried to take on Google in 2012 with its own map application on its iOS devices, end users began

noticing “locations were mislabeled, roads were missing, and it occasionally steered people in entirely the wrong direction,” the site reported. Yes, the problems eventually were fixed. You might argue that these errors were based on human decisions that AI automation could prevent from happening. Maybe. But remember that AI automation starts with human behavior. What happens if (or when?) the programming or prompting may include errors or just a minor miscalculation or decimal point position? How do you get AI automation to anticipate and correct human behavior or at least fact-check it like the latest language-learning software apps? Remember the adage, if you do things right the first time you won’t have to do them over again. If the late Rev. Garren Hagemeier were still with us he’d be able to cite a Biblical passage as proof – potentially Proverbs 24:27 or Luke 14:28.

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.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting



EVENTS

Insights from the National Accounts Summit The Journal of Healthcare Contracting and the Association of National Account Executives recently hosted the National Accounts Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, where national account executives from all over the country converge to learn how large health systems measure successful contracts, go indepth on the challenges these systems are facing, and what successful supplier and provider relationships look like. Here are some takeaways:

Understanding each other’s roles A vice president of supply chain operations and performance believes that sourcing staff throughout the healthcare industry has almost been trained to view vendors in an adversarial way, partially because they don’t have a great understanding of the business or what sales reps are trying to accomplish. He said, “We’ve had some great opportunities in the last year to bring vendors in to train the sourcing team on what they’re trying to accomplish. It would really help us out if we understood what you’re telling them and how you’re

training them to engage with clinicians. We think that would help from a sourcing perspective, and we also want to learn how to work with physicians. You seem to be engaged with our clinicians and a lot of the time they don’t want to meet with supply chain.”

QBRs aren’t always effective The idea behind a quarterly business review is solid, but a chief supply chain officer expressed his displeasure with QBRs as a method of strategy and communication. He spoke about the supply chain journey of the health system that he works at and the level of waste that he sees throughout the healthcare supply chain. “The amount of waste we have in supply chain is beyond reality. Please don’t wait until QBRs to tell me about waste in my facilities. We sit in that room with a hundred and it loses people. If there’s a problem, just come talk to me.” The level of partnership matters During a panel about building strategic partnerships, a category manager for supply chain sourcing discussed a time when they were looking for a partner to build a large consolidated service center. His team needed some level of automation with the ability to scale and maintain the technology. “He took the time to help us develop the vision for it and walk us through some realistic expectations of operating a facility like this. I think that level of agnostic transparency from the supplier in that instance was what helped them stick out way above the competitors at the time.”

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting | October 2026



NEWS

Industry News Cleveland Clinic opens two new research buildings Cleveland Clinic celebrated the opening of two new state-of-theart research buildings, part of the largest research investment in the organization’s more than 100-year history. A significant expansion of the research and innovation infrastructure on Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus, the buildings total 300,000 square feet and are located at E. 100th Street and Cedar Avenue. Together, they house more than 700 employees and nearly 30 laboratories and core service areas, supporting high-level scientific work and computational research while increasing capacity for scientific discovery. Designed to foster innovation and collaboration, the buildings feature advanced research laboratories, open collaborative areas, classrooms, offices and a café, along with enhanced greenspace, landscaping and walking paths that create a new entrance to the southeast section of Main Campus. Intermountain Health unveils plans for new hospital in downtown Salt Lake City Intermountain Health unveiled plans for a new Intermountain LDS Hospital in downtown Salt Lake City, marking a transformational investment in the future of healthcare for Utah residents and reaffirming a commitment to serving the

community for generations to come. The new hospital will be located on an approximately eight-acre site at 745 South State Street, which was previously the longtime home to Sears retail store, which closed in 2018. The new hospital will anchor a major downtown development and provide a modern, patient-centered environment designed to meet the evolving healthcare needs of Salt Lake County, South Davis County, and the broader Intermountain region. Following extensive analysis of community health needs in Salt Lake City, patient trends, facility requirements, and long-term growth projections, Intermountain determined that constructing a replacement hospital would provide greater value and flexibility than modernizing the existing campus, which is in a residential neighborhood in Salt Lake City’s Avenues District.

AdventHealth Hospital completes major expansion AdventHealth Daytona Beach Hospital has completed a major expansion that increased inpatient capacity from 362 to 466 beds. Among the hospital’s new 104 intensive and progressive care beds is a dedicated neuro-ICU for patients facing serious neurological conditions along

with an expanded cardiovascular intensive care unit. Patient rooms added through the expansion also include AdventHealth’s smart room technology. Digital whiteboards display information, such as a patient’s clinical team, medications and daily goals, while secure video technology can

connect patients with clinicians and other services. The project increases AdventHealth Daytona Beach’s footprint to nearly 1 million square feet. Four new surgical suites bring the hospital’s total to 22 while additional CT and MRI equipment expands imaging capacity.

October 2026 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting

We See It Disconnected systems add friction. We design to remove it. Capturing vital signs is a routine part of every patient visit. Automated vital signs capture syncs data directly into the EMR—helping reduce errors and eliminating manual entry, giving caregivers more time to focus on patient care. Introducing the new Midmark® 800 Digital Scan VitaltoSigns Device. learn more.

Better care begins with every detail. midmark.com/800vitals