Define Your Requirements Before shopping for systems, hospitals should review their existing infrastructure— including security systems, human resources, hardware and software support, technology devices, storage facilities, and IT services—to support a smooth integration of infant protection solution. Hospitals can form an interdisciplinary team of clinicians, safety representatives, nursing leadership, and educators to outline the facility’s […]
Category: Supply Chain
Responding to Frequent Drug Shortages
Date:
November 16, 2018
Category:
Supply Chain
Drug shortages continue to pose challenges for provider pharmacies in the final quarter of the year. While the causes for drug shortages can vary from natural disasters to voluntary recalls, one thing remains consistent: provider organizations need to have the ability to react to the inevitable shortages. Hospitals and health systems that are unable to […]
Observing Best Practices in Healthcare Sustainability Efforts
Date:
October 30, 2018
Category:
Supply Chain
One of the leaders in healthcare sustainability efforts has been Gundersen Health System, located in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The organization has a centralized sustainability program called Envision that is tackling environmental stewardship from several angles. HBI recently visited Gundersen’s main campus to learn about Envision and observe the program’s operations firsthand. Gundersen originally began exploring […]
Charting Value Analysis Expansion and Evolution
The Supply Chain Academy’s Best Practice Report Preview In the context of broader cost containment efforts, healthcare organizations are identifying the supply chain and product optimization as opportunities for improvement. Specifically, standardization and value analysis are demonstrating the potential to save money and resources without reducing care quality or patient satisfaction, which makes them ideal […]
How Can Supply Chain Support OR Optimization?
The operating room represents one of the largest cost centers and produces some of the highest rates of clinician burnout in modern healthcare environments. This is a significant hurdle for providers and it’s one that needs to be addressed holistically and with the help of a variety of departments. We’ve been receiving a number of […]
How Provider Supply Chains Can Prepare for Extreme Weather Events
Date:
August 30, 2018
Category:
Supply Chain
According to the National Climate Assessment, a team of experts working under the Federal Advisory Committee, extreme weather events have been increasing in frequency, particularly over the last several decades. Floods, hurricanes, snow storms, droughts, and massive wildfires pose a significant health threat and can cause serious disruptions in the production and logistics of medical […]
The First Use of an Automated Pass-Through Reprocessor
Millions of medical procedures each year are performed using reprocessed endoscopes, flexible tubes with lights and cameras that allow physicians to see inside the patient’s body and diagnose and treat medical disorders. Though the reported incidence of hospital-acquired infections associated with endoscopes is low—1 per every 1.8 million procedures, according to the CDC—HAIs are more […]
Going to the Gemba: Healthcare Supply Chain’s Lean Transformation
Created for the manufacturing sector in Japan, Lean Process Improvement is a philosophy and a set of tools that can help organizations optimize their performance. In the last 30 years, Lean has become ubiquitous in multiple industries beyond manufacturing, such as grocery and retail. Now it is increasingly finding its way into healthcare, with numerous […]
Using Geothermal Energy to Lower Consumption and Costs
Use of renewable energy, produced from natural resources that are not finite like fossil fuels, is on the rise in the U.S. The federal government predicts that this trend will continue through 2040. For healthcare providers, which consume some of the highest levels of energy among buildings in the U.S., renewable energy presents an opportunity […]