After working with him for nearly a decade, I finally had the chance to meet Gartner’s lead master data management analyst, Andrew White, in person today. He kicked off the "Big Data" track at the 2012 GHX Supply Chain Summit, helping the audience get some perspective on what can be an overwhelming subject for many. Andrew said, "it’s not really about the data," but rather the business objective you are trying to achieve. It seems like an obvious point but one that is often forgotten when we are too focused on the challenges around data created, stored, shared and used in healthcare. Think about electronic health records (EHRs) as an example. Many healthcare systems have been so focused on meeting the requirements of meaningful use in time to qualify for federal funding that they forgot to consider whether their systems would communicate with EHRs deployed by other providers. And isn’t a primary purpose of EHRs to make sure that providers responsible for specific patients have the ability to share information...

I am in Sydney, Australia for the GS1 Global Healthcare Conference, which convened this morning.   Arriving over the weekend,  I had the opportunity to tour the Sydney Opera House. I was struck by the story of how the shells that comprise the famed design of the complex were constructed. The story holds a lesson for those of us working to increase standardization in healthcare, whether it be the adoption of data standards or more standardized processes. 

First the story: It took Danish architect Jorn Utzon three years to come up with the solution to the structural engineering challenge that building the shells presented and that structural engineers had declared unsolvable.  Utzon derived  the final shape of the shells, according to the opera house website, “from the surface of a single imagined sphere, with each shell composed of pre-cast rib segments radiating from a concrete pedestal and rising to a ridge beam.”

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The proposed rules for meaningful use stage 2 were finally published in the Federal Register last night, albeit AFTER the keynote address by National Health IT Coordinator Farzad Mostashari, M.D. at the HIMSS 2012 conference in Las Vegas yesterday morning – just further testament to the fact that Washington does not always meet its deadlines. (Oh, wait, is that a surprise?)

Also not surprising is the fact that there was no mention of capturing the unique device identifier (UDI) in electronic medical records, despite the fact that FDA and the Office of the National Coordinator begun working on what that might look like. It’s not surprising because the proposed final rule for UDI is also not out yet. Rumor has it that it’s fallen trap to those fearful of issuing too many regulations during a presidential campaign, but as we all know from the primary season, things can change quickly and...

 

Later today, I will climb on the plane and fly to Las Vegas to join 20 to 30 thousand of my colleagues in healthcare IT for the 2012 HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition. Sadly, once again this year, the role of the supply chain in meeting some of our most critical clinical and financial challenges in healthcare reform is absent from the agenda - with one notable exception. An impressive group of experts – from medicine and technology (including EMRs, clinical documentation, RFID, and system integration) will meet Wednesday afternoon at HIMSS to discuss the problems associated with inaccurate and incomplete clinical supply documentation at the point of use. 

Research has shown that manual, duplicative and disjointed processes in the OR and other procedural suites result in more than $5 billion in waste each year in the US alone.  To illustrate the point,  a colleague recently told me about an OR that throws packaging from supplies consumed duriung a procedure into a garbage bag and uses that for supply documentation after the fact.  When I mentioned this to others, they commented, well, at least that hosptial has a process in place.  

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There’s been plenty of news about implantable medical devices in recent weeks, but unfortunately, the coverage has been fairly limited in scope (focused primarily on price), which, in my opinion, fails to address the more important issue: how do we manage the use of these devices in a manner that helps deliver quality care in an affordable manner. 

So, while Congress, the General Accounting Office and various trade associations debate issues around the price paid for implants, a dozen of the nation’s leading healthcare systems are working with some of the world’s most well-known medical device manufacturers to change the nature of the discussion. These organizations are serving on advisory boards that are helping GHX identify the process change, technology solutions and data sharing policies necessary to help take costs out of the implantable device supply chain. They recognize that it’s not about one segment of the healthcare supply chain making or losing money, but rather about finding shared solutions...

I have been pleased to see a number of reports, news releases and blog posts recently about the value of cloud computing in healthcare. One of my favorite bloggers, Tom Finn, with Healthcare Matters, recently wrote about the value of cloud-enabled supply chain management, noting “it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but rather ‘how’ healthcare providers are going to implement ‘cloud computing’.” Tom also referenced a recent KLAS news release that says 71 percent of providers are deploying or plan to deploy cloud technology. All good news, but I have a concern. In both pieces, and I would argue in most cases, the cloud is being viewed too narrowly in healthcare. 

Finn talks about how it can help the supply chain, while KLAS focuses primarily on how clinicians would use it. But the real value of the cloud is its ability to...

I was talking to a colleague the other day about how the economic challenges faced by both healthcare delivery systems and their vendors may actually create the impetus we need to better align goals across the supply chain.  Misaligned incentives have been a major factor in the historic lack of trust between providers and suppliers, which has hampered their ability to lower the cost of doing business together and, in turn, the cost of healthcare.  Unfortunately, Wall Street’s almost myopic focus on top-line growth could impede efforts by many healthcare suppliers to make the kinds of changes I believe are needed to position them for success in an era of healthcare reform.

The US Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of the healthcare reform law will certainly create some good fodder for political pundits, with the oral arguments occurring during the height of the presidential campaign season, but it does little to address the more pressing question:  how to lower the escalating cost of healthcare, without negatively impacting patient care and without waiting on the courts or the political process.    No matter where they stand on the law, the hospital and healthcare delivery system executives I talk to all agree, they cannot wait; they have to take action to cut costs NOW. 

Those who have visited The Healthcare Hub before know I spend a fair amount of time talking about collaboration. I’m not alone in my interest in the topic. It’s showing up on agendas of industry conferences and on the research agendas of major analyst firms. The problem is, while most folks say they want to collaborate more, whether with others in their own organizations, or with their trading partners, few really know how to develop a truly collaborative relationship, and more importantly measure the results. Did it really make a difference, for both parties, and is it sustainable and repeatable?

I just finished reading a white paper on supply chain collaboration in healthcare, which provides some real life examples of successful collaborations(with results) and some guidelines on how to identify and engage with potential partners.

One thing the paper underscored is the real value of collaboration:...

Something very special happened in Chicago this past week. A group of healthcare manufacturers and hospital executives came together and gave me hope, for the first time in a while, that we may actually find the answers to our current healthcare crisis through collaboration. And I got to thinking, “What if our lawmakers in Washington, who cannot seem to agree on anything including healthcare, could have listened to this conversation?”

What made today’s meeting so special is that when these two groups talk, it is usually about a topic on which they naturally disagree: price. Suppliers want to sell high, hospitals want to buy low. Instead, today, they focused on what they have in common and how they can help each other achieve their respective goals. Instead of complaining about supplier profit margins, the hospital executives around the table said repeatedly: I want my suppliers to make money; I want them to stay in business. At the same time, they called on the suppliers to help them keep their doors open...