The first week of October each year is “National Health Care Supply Chain Week,” dedicated to celebrating healthcare supply chain and the industry’s professionals.
Sponsored by the Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management – also known as AHRMM – this year’s National Health Care Supply Chain Week runs from October 2 to 8 and will provide a great opportunity to celebrate healthcare supply chain workers for their contributions to patient care and the significant role they play in providing support to healthcare organizations.
According to AHRMM, it’s also a week during which healthcare leaders can learn more about recent innovations in healthcare supply chain and how to implement them in their own organizations. This year, AHRMM is providing various activities and other resources on its website for National Health Care Supply Chain Week.
An Industry of Leaders
Prodigo Solutions celebrates National Health Care Supply Chain Week by recognizing its client community of health systems that are continuously making an impact on the industry.
This Health Care Supply Chain Week, and every week, Prodigo is honoring its client community of 37 healthcare providers – which is comprised of more than 700 acute care hospitals – and the clinical and supply chain teams that help each organization to operate efficiently and ensure that an emphasis is placed on high-quality patient care.
Prodigo’s clients are consistently being identified for their impactful work in healthcare. In June, The Journal of Healthcare Contracting listed leaders from four Prodigo clients among The Ten People to Watch in Healthcare Contracting – including George Godfrey, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Corporate VP, Share Services for Baptist Health South Florida; Dan Hurry, President of Advantus Health Partners and Chief Supply Chain Officer for Bon Secours Mercy Health; Meena Medler, VP of Supply Chain Management for UPMC; and Jane Torzewski, Director, Category Management, Medical Device Team for Mayo Clinic and Captis.
Hospitals from Prodigo’s client community also recently encompassed many of the slots in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Children’s Hospitals rankings. The rankings were based on data from about 200 facilities. The list’s top three were Boston Children's Hospital, Texas Children's Hospital, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, while UPMC Children’s Hospital was No. 6.
Mostly recently, Bellwether League Foundation’s Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership elected eight professionals – hailed as innovators, leaders, trailblazers, and visionaries for their industry contributions and performance – as honorees of the Bellwether Class of 2022. Among the elected is Thomas M. Lubotsky, Vice President, Supply Chain at Allina Health.
This year, Prodigo is also spotlighting two of its clients in particular that are widely recognized as industry leaders – BJC HealthCare and NYU Langone Health.
BJC HealthCare
In 2016, BJC HealthCare first joined Prodigo’s client community as a means to reduce noncatalog special request spending and increase manageable spend and contract compliance. BJC integrated Prodigo’s Marketplace platform with its ERP system, resulting in an immediate impact on reducing special requests and non-purchase-order spending.
BJC has supported distributed clinical delivery during the ongoing supply chain disruptions of recent years. And last year, BJC integrated Prodigo’s Xchange platform, which extended the functionality of the health system’s Marketplace and helped BJC to improve vendor adoption of EDI, so that it could more quickly automate a greater percentage of its supplier EDI transactions.
“National Health Care Supply Chain Week provides an opportunity to not only celebrate the instrumental work of supply chain workers in healthcare, but also to reflect on the importance of the team effort in providing high-quality care to patients,” said Erin O’Donnell, Purchasing Manager, Logistics at BJC HealthCare. “We believe that it’s important to have the right partners – such as Prodigo – in such endeavors.”
BJC is one of the largest U.S. nonprofit healthcare organizations and has net revenues of $6 billion. The health system is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the people and communities it serves through leadership, education, innovation, and excellence in medicine.
NYU Langone Health
NYU Langone Health is an academic medical center that consists of six inpatient locations in New York City and Long Island as well as Rusk Rehabilitation, which has been ranked as one of the top 10 rehabilitation programs in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for more than 30 years, and other rehabilitation locations throughout the five boroughs and Long Island.
NYU Langone first joined Prodigo’s client community in 2012 when choosing Marketplace to create a seamless experience for its users, and to drive contract compliance and price accuracy within its supply chain.
“At NYU Langone, we continuously strive to eliminate inefficiencies and lower costs in supply chain. This has led us to operating models that give us control, end-to-end automation, and full transparency for every dollar we spend. Prodigo shares our vision to drive down the cost of patient care while improving overall service levels,” said Frank Banno, Associate Director, Data Management for NYU Langone Health.
Leading the Way
BJC HealthCare and NYU Langone Health have each integrated their operations and practices through the supply chain continuum to ensure and support quality patient care, and both have used metrics and measurements for internal and external performance by incorporating benchmarks to measure efficiency and the effectiveness of their business processes.
Additionally, BJC and NYU Langone have driven compliance – thereby ensuring the purchase of the right item, from the right source, at the right price – through directed buying, which ensures supply chain compliance by enabling managers to influence thousands of purchasing decisions and directs users to contracted, compliant goods and services that are the preferred choice of an organization.
Both BJC and NYU Langone were recently included in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals 2022-23 honor roll. BJC was ranked first in St. Louis and 11th in the nation, while NYU Langone came in first in New York and third in the nation. Additionally, NYU Langone was ranked first in the nation for neurology and neurosurgery.
BJC and NYU Langone also made Forbes’ recent “America’s Best Employers by State” list, which included 262 hospitals and health systems that were named the best in their respective states. And NYU Langone also made Forbes’ 2022 list of America’s Best Employers for Women.
“As we celebrate healthcare professionals for their contributions during National Health Care Supply Chain Week, Prodigo is grateful to be able to recognize its client community that is dedicated to healthcare,” said Joseph Mayernik, Executive Chairman and President of Prodigo. “BJC HealthCare and NYU Langone have both led the way in supporting the success of our industry and we are proud to be partnered with each of them.”