FREMONT, CA: The daunting challenge for supply chain management lies in not only getting the equipment and supplies that is needed for high-quality patient care, but also improving the value, lessening cost, and integrating clinician input.Here are four ways to help an organization to enhance its supply chain management via clinical integration.
Use Data for Evidence-Based Decisions
The missing link in the clinical integration within a supply chain has been data on patient outcomes and safety related to the variations in practice and products’ use. That nature of data is not always available, specifically for new and emerging health technologies. But decisions to adopt new products or services demand good clinical evidence, especially in the context of the Affordable Care Act and the broader mission within healthcare today.
Various Factors While Purchasing
By transitioning the strategy behind supply chain management and integrating it into the clinical process, clinicians actively participate and leverage data to enhance clinical and financial objectives.
Encourage Collaboration with Stakeholders
With evidence-based decisions in supply chain management, pharma companies see the need to ensure that stakeholders across the hospital are involved in those decisions.
Some organization uses committees, collaboratives, and councils, to set up horizontally throughout the enterprise so that all are represented. Some are ad-hoc, and some are permanent. As the supply chain is represented on each team, they try to connect the clinicians’ needs back to what’s available in the marketplace and ensure that they are contracting for those things that satisfy the clinical need.
Consider the Care Continuum
Clinical integration into supply chain management has become more critical in the current healthcare environment than ever before. Organizations are now getting reimbursed for the continuum of care, not for what takes place in the hospital’s four walls. They are reimbursed based on the outcomes or, in some cases, penalized based on the outcomes and readmissions, and those have to be crucial parts of the decision-making processes at this point.
