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We have chosen to name this blog “Driving Results” because driving results is exactly what the right healthcare transportation should do: drive better patient experiences and better results for healthcare organizations. Our goal for this forum is to support that mission by engaging and collaborating with you and other like-minded healthcare industry leaders. We hope to work together to become a powerful voice with real impact in moving healthcare forward. (more…)
One such article from the May 2011 cover story of The Journal of Healthcare Contracting titled “Get on the Move!” by Robert Handfield, Ph.D, was especially interesting. In the article, Dr. Handfield reveals the results of his survey of Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) and Healthcare systems, as well as in-depth interviews conducted with executives and providers. His goal in conducting the study was to learn more about how healthcare leaders satisfy their transportation needs and develop a recommended methodology for tackling this important issue. (more…)
An industry survey conducted by HealthLeaders, entitled “Better Care and the Bottom Line,” recently caught my eye. As part of the survey, HealthLeaders asked 289 healthcare executives what they believe are the major drivers of waste in healthcare today and what they believe can help fix the problem. The respondents listed the following as the key contributors to waste:
- Operational inefficiency
- Overutilization of services
- Lack of system integration (more…)
I don’t mean this to imply that all the details about how we get there are clear … perhaps just the opposite really. There are expectations of upheaval from greater consolidation, uncertainty about how ACO structure – and with it the significant trend of physician practice acquisition – is going to play out and the ever present concerns about diminishing reimbursements. (more…)
There are estimates that 30 to 50 percent of all healthcare spending can be described as waste — activity that provides no benefit to patients. Lost and mislabeled specimens and expiration of inventory due to poor rotation are two of the major areas of hospital waste that are listed in the article. This adds up to a staggering $1 trillion-plus a year in the United States alone. If we are to experience true healthcare reform, this clearly has to stop.
MedSpeed CEO, Jake Crampton offers his perspective on why healthcare transportation is an important strategic asset and some tips to help healthcare executives better understand their current operations in “Healthcare transportation: An overlooked opportunity.”
Healthcare Transportation: An Overlooked Opportunity
1. Change management: With the amount of market-driven and reform-driven change affecting healthcare providers, CEOs are troubled by how they can prioritize (more…)
Leading supply chain executives describe how transportation is an often overlooked source of waste within health systems in “Focusing on Transportation Services to Improve Efficiencies.”
HealthLeaders recently posted an article titled “4 Unpleasant Predictions for 2012.” While I’m not sure we want to start off the New Year with unpleasantness, a realistic approach is crucial. Using HealthLeaders’ annual survey, as well as her own conversations with healthcare CFOs, the author, Karen Minich-Pourshadi made her predictions for the top concerns facing healthcare financial leaders in 2012. (more…)
As an example, they discuss a company that in the early 1990s had disappointing company performance. Under a restructuring plan, costs fell by 18%, but over the next 8 years, those same layers that had been cut out, crept back in. (more…)
Where’s the data?
Unless an organization has undergone a transportation effectiveness diagnostic (only one of them had) they honestly had no insight or understanding of their actual transportation costs. As one supply chain manager put it:
So, now that there is a decision, what does it mean? Well, regardless of political leanings or personal opinions, there are two main points of consensus, in my opinion: (more…)
To me, this change in how we do business means that some of the truths we have always known need to be challenged. For example, in the purchased services world (more…)
MedSpeed CEO, Jake Crampton, joins experts in freight and shipping to weigh in on hidden inefficiencies and their impact on the healthcare supply chain in “The Freight Escape.”
First on the list: “transportation.” We know from our discussions with healthcare supply chain managers that transportation is not a core competency of healthcare systems or providers. But, while many organizations outsource many other areas (laundry, food service, EMS), a large number continue to retain their own transportation operations, often with minimal technology for tracking.
But perhaps the tide is turning. (more…)
With the rapid changes we are experiencing in healthcare, we decided to conduct a follow up to see if the discussion has changed. So, at the 2012 Fall IDN Summit in Phoenix, AZ, we gathered another group of top healthcare supply chain leaders and asked them to talk about their current supply chain and healthcare transportation needs and challenges. (more…)
One of the hottest topics the group discussed is how rapidly U.S. health systems are changing. Care is moving beyond the four walls of the hospital and health systems are growing quickly through acquisitions and strategic partnerships.
Hospitals and health systems will look very different tomorrow than they look today. Given that the reach of systems is much further than it was, managing the supply chain amidst constant growth creates a big obstacle.
What our supply chain leaders had to say, in their own words:
“I see a complexity that wasn’t there even a year or two ago. What used to be a very simple courier system (more…)
After discussing how rapidly U.S. health systems are changing and the demand of managing the supply chain amidst constant growth, the discussion moved on to another challenge faced by the supply chain leaders who participated in the discussion: that they, like most organizations, do not even know where to begin to truly understand healthcare transportation costs. (more…)
In our session, participants reiterated what we have heard in previous discussions: healthcare is their specialty, not transportation. Operating an in-house courier network or managing multiple third party couriers steals valuable time and resources from a health system’s ability to focus on its core competency of high quality patient care. Moreover, the shift towards outsourcing in order to become more nimble and to more effectively manage resources is thematically applicable to other non-core functions within the health system. (more…)
Everyone acknowledged that doing things the way they’ve always been done is not a recipe for success. Health systems need to pay attention to previously overlooked areas, such as healthcare transportation, to see how they can improve and simplify the supply chain and ultimately better integrate the entire organization. (more…)
The impact is felt widely throughout the industry and by all healthcare executives. I recently read an article by HealthLeaders about itssecond annual CFO Exchange. For the exchange, HealthLeaders brought together 30 finance leaders from hospitals and systems nationwide for a discussion about how their organizations were “tackling some of the more demanding healthcare mandates in history while maintaining a grip on their purse strings.” (more…)