Through contracting and other initiatives, many health systems have harvested much of the "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to driving costs out of the system. Yet, estimates indicate the healthcare industry could save at least $5 billion annually through more efficient management of physician preferred, high-value medical devices in the healthcare supply chain, according to Lisa Zierten, director of marketing, hospital services at Cardinal Health.
She shared the following tip with Becker's Hospital Review:
"To impact costs around product usage, supply chain needs support from clinicians. When it comes to product standardization and other supply chain initiatives in procedural areas, a cost savings story without data-driven rationale is not enough to create alignment.
For example, hospitals are using radio-frequency identification and other leading technologies to collect product usage data by clinician, procedure, patient and outcome. Equally as important, cloud-based analytics and dashboards are helping clinicians understand — and buy into — the reality that product standardization can improve efficiency and, thus, drive down the total cost of delivery without compromising care.
This kind of data-driven collaboration is proving that the greatest efficiencies can only be gained when supply chain experts and clinicians work together as strategic partners."
Is your hospital equipped with data to drive collaboration? Check out this infographic to build your case.
To learn more about using data to boost physician engagement, access Ms. Zierten's article, featured on Becker's Hospital Review, here.
If you would like to submit a supply chain tip, please email Mackenzie Bean at mbean@beckershealthcare.com.
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