In light of the escalating costs of healthcare globally, experts from Booz & Company have identified ways in which to alleviate the rising costs through hospital supply chains, while helping to improve patient care. “In the MENA region, healthcare accounted for 3-5 percent of GDP in 2008 and has been rising rapidly at an average annual rate of approximately 15 percent since 2005. The region's healthcare systems, like many others around the world, has so far been unable to develop a successful formula for providing high-quality, universally accessible healthcare at a cost that is sustainable over the long-term,” said Jad Bitar, a Principal with Booz & Company. The company had devised three models to achieve excellence in healthcare. The first which is the most basic model aims simply to ensure supplies are in stock. A more advanced form uses a hospital-wide approach to reduce costs and improve efficiency and the third aims to balance cost control with patient outcomes. The SCM organizations can rise to this challenge by adopting a collaborative approach, especially with clinicians. The goal is to engage them in identifying items that offer the best outcomes for patients based on evidence compared to costs. This collaborative model hinges on strong governance structures, such as establishing product standardization committees. Hospital SCM models can evolve and shift focus from simply ensuring required items are in stock to developing integrated processes and systems that aim to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance patient safety and clinical outcomes. The right governance structure for SCM allows hospitals to maintain the balance between reducing costs and providing high-quality care. With increasing maturity, SCM governance evolves from focusing on the SCM team alone to a collaborative approach involving all stakeholders, without which all other efforts to move to the transformation model simply will fail. “To achieve such a mature governance model means moving away from merely executing clinician orders to engaging with them in an on-going, constructive dialogue and equipping them with the proper information to help them make the right decision for their patients and for the hospital,” Bitar opines. “This is a complex process that includes data collection, comparative and cost/value analyses, and communication.”
