Recent posts

As hospitals and health systems continue to work to manage costs while maintaining quality, surgical tray standardization remains an untapped resource for many organizations. As surgeons request instruments based on their individual preferences, the size of surgical trays continues to grow. And as the number of instruments on a surgical tray grows, the use of those instruments declines, creating unnecessary costs to purchase, process and manage the instruments. Standardizing surgical trays can support hospital efforts to manage costs and maintain quality, but for many are an untapped resource. Here’s what you need to know.

Today more than ever managing change is an inherent part of a supply chain leader’s role. Backorders, substitutions and supplier changes have become almost daily events. While some of these changes may be transparent to end-users, such as changing an office supply, others, such as a critical patient care item, may involve shifting processes and procedures that affect multiple departments across the hospital. In my experience, the latter requires clear communication to all affected groups and end-users to successfully implement wide-reaching supply chain changes.

In my conversations with senior executives at healthcare organizations around the country, I find that leaders have three critical topics on their minds: workforce, workforce, and workforce.

 And no wonder. 

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of welcoming our members, suppliers and staff to the Vizient Connections Summit, our first in-person event since the start of the pandemic. The conference centered around the concept of unity, which was palpable in the excitement of peers and colleagues from all corners of the health care industry reuniting for the first time in too long. Not to mention the word Unite in big block letters sprawled across every screen. But as the ballroom filled and the noise of conversation swelled, I found myself captivated by a different word just above those big block letters – Connections.

Industries such as transportation, government and entertainment have long used “wrap up” programs called owner-controlled insurance programs (OCIPs) to facilitate more control over their insurance costs, coverage, safety and claims management for larger construction projects. There are many benefits for OCIPs for health care construction, including cost savings and enhanced coverage value for their organization. Here's why.

Using homeownership as an analogy, we'll explore how the traditional role of health insurance has been replaced by an expectation that each beneficiary will take out at least as much as they pay into the system, a fundamentally unsustainable economic model.

Today, American culture is changing so quickly and with such a high degree of nuance that it is increasingly difficult both to interpret and to navigate. However, navigating how those changes affect markets is essential for business success throughout the economy.

Every person deserves a fair and just opportunity to be healthier. No one should remain disadvantaged from achieving their full health potential due to who they are, where they live or any socially defined circumstance. Hospitals and health systems across the nation are working to improve health and access to care by addressing the clinical manifestations of social determinants of health. But despite our members’ efforts, closing the gaps in health outcomes also requires the support of policymakers.

Much of the care patients need and receive is performed on an outpatient basis in individual provider practices, clinics and other types of ambulatory care sites. These sites have historically struggled with operational efficiency and staffing challenges that have the potential to force them to close their doors. The pandemic has exacerbated those challenges and ambulatory clinic leaders are looking for ways to achieve greater efficiency. The efficiency they are searching for may be standing in front of them.

In a recent blog post, my colleague Bradley Schultz discussed how management systems provide the infrastructure for executing organizational strategy, sustaining improvements and creating a heightened state of staff engagement during the high reliability journey. Indeed, the management system is an essential component that supports the high-reliability health care organization (HRO) infrastructure. Just as grey matter in the central nervous system enables an individual to control memory, movement and emotions, leadership enables the organization to move in the right direction, operate in the right environment and set the foundation for improvement, all of which help to create and sustain a high reliability in health care.