Leaders from Hospitals, Manufacturers and Distributors Attend the World’s Largest Event Focused on Healthcare Supply Chain
Louisville, CO and Las Vegas, NV
— Monday, May 20, 2013
GHX kicked off the thirteenth annual Healthcare Supply Chain Summit today at the Red Rock Resort &Spa in Las Vegas. Bringing together nearly 600 healthcare professionals from hospitals, suppliers, distributors and GPOs, the Summit has become the world’s largest and most well-respected healthcare supply chain event. This year’s conference is dedicated to the idea of “We Are Change”– promoting collaboration, transparency, technology adoption and forward thinking to change the healthcare status quo, reduce costs and improve patient care.
Complementing the theme of “We Are Change,”many of the Summit’s sessions will focus on the most pressing healthcare trends in the industry, including:
- Accountable Care through the Supply Chain: The healthcare industry is undergoing massive change as it moves toward a system that pays for value, not volume. The post-reform era requires informed leaders who understand how to turn their businesses into accountable supply chain organizations. John Willi of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will discuss the need to drive supply chain management from the intersection of cost, quality and outcomes (CQO), and Dave Reed of Cook Medical will provide a supplier’s perspective on ways to collaborate with providers to reduce costs and improve visibility across the supply chain.
- Becoming Change Leaders: Leading change within an organization is not a simple task, but elevating supply chain management to a strategic enterprise initiative is critical to succeed in the new age of healthcare. Doug Sabotin of Columbus Regional Health will offer advice on aligning change with high-level company goals, creating an environment where change is embraced and ensuring that stakeholders become change advocates. Alan Edwards of Adventist Health System and John Martin of Champlain Health Supply Services will provide candid accounts of how they revamped supply chain processes and achieved fundamental transformations for their businesses.
- Taking Costs Out of Healthcare: Increasingly, the healthcare supply chain is being looked at to contribute value by maximizing those activities that work and, most importantly, changing those that just add costs. A panel with McLeod Health, Zimmer and Symmetry Surgical will explore the concept of Cost-to-Serve (CTS), a supply chain management approach that incorporates a broad view of costs that can be tracked, measured and modeled to manage processes more efficiently. Regine Honore Villain of Medical University Hospital Authority (MUHA) will share how MUHA reduced operating costs while supporting new clinical and revenue-generating initiatives by reengineering the supply chain. Ransome Shirley of Texas Children’s Hospital will also provide advice for how to leverage the supply chain to achieve the “perfect order.”
- Creating Better Trading Partner Relationships: Trust, transparency and collaboration are relatively new concepts when it comes to trading-partner relationships, but healthcare providers and suppliers need to transform and strengthen their relationships in the changing market. Avera Health and Owens &Minor will share how they’ve built a more effective partnership that benefits both organizations.
- The UDI Rule is Here to Stay: The Food &Drug Administration’s (FDA) Unique Device Identification (UDI) regulation is creating major changes, not just for suppliers, but organizations throughout healthcare. Jay Crowley from the FDA and David Brooks from Covidien will offer attendees information they need to understand about UDI, timing of regulation rollouts and what they can to do to make sure they are ready. Craig Karagitz of Terumo Cardiovascular Systems will also discuss his company’s journey of successfully completing four test data loads into the GDSN in preparation for UDI.
- The Dawn of the Implantable Device Supply Chain (IDSC): The IDSC spans 15 processes from initial case scheduling, through to the operation and final payment. It’s a manual, error-ridden process that costs the industry $5 billion a year in waste. But with new technologies and more collaboration between trading partners, the IDSC is changing – becoming more automated, transparent and reducing those processes from 15 to four. McLeod Health, Zimmer, Johnson &Johnson and SCL Health Systems will hold multiple sessions discussing the technologies, strategies and tactics they are employing to bring efficiency and cost saving to this segment of the healthcare supply chain.
The entire GHX Healthcare Supply Chain Summit agenda can be viewed here. Follow the conference action in real-time by visiting the Healthcare Hub blog or following #GHX on Twitter.
About GHX
Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) is driving costs out of healthcare by transforming the healthcare supply chain. Working with providers and suppliers, GHX is accelerating change by providing a faster, more efficient and collaborative supply chain that will take billions of dollars out of the cost of healthcare. For more information, visit www.ghx.com and The Healthcare Hub.