Hospital leaders see improving supply chain management as a way to counter rapidly declining margins, a new survey conducted by Sage Growth Partners suggests.
For the survey, Sage Growth Partners, asked 100 healthcare C-suite and supply chain leaders about their health system's supply chain initiatives.
More than half of respondents, 52 percent, said that changes to their supply chain management could result in margin improvements between 1 percent and 3 percent. About 35 percent said better supply chain management could increase margins more than 3 percent.
To put this in perspective, a hospital with $900 million in revenue and a 1 percent margin could gain $9 million to $27 million, according to the report.
Respondents also were asked where supply chain management falls on their list of operational priorities. Sixty-five percent of respondents said improving their supply chain is a "high" work priority, and 33 percent said it is a "medium" work priority. Only 13 percent of respondents said it was their highest priority.
Other top priorities for hospital leaders included investing in improving patient throughput (24 percent); process improvement (21 percent); perioperative environment (15 percent); staffing turnover and retention efforts (15 percent); and "other" (12 percent).
Read the full report here for more insights.