Healthcare materials managers adjust to changing care continuum

Materials managers are beginning to adjust to a new reality — one in which providers are paid for keeping people out of hospitals rather than keeping them in, according to an article in the December issue of Health Facilities Management magazine.

Comprehensive payment reform will causing a big change in supply chain management that could result in new efficiencies, the article said.

"If we are managing supply chain, we better be managing products and services that allow providers to take care of people outside the hospital," Brent Johnson, vice president of supply chain and chief purchasing officer at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, said in the article

Name of the game

Integration is becoming a major theme in supply chain management as providers work to coordinate care, and new models are being created to meet the challenges of managing equipment and supplies, the article said.

"The system we've had for many years has been very modular," Eugene Schneller, department of supply chain management at Arizona State University in Tempe, said in the article. "Suddenly you have a system that demands integration."

Read the article.