As many hospitals grapple to keep up the rapidly changing technological landscape, supply chain management has emerged as a guiding force for cutting costs, enhancing data management capabilities and improving efficiencies. Specifically, five trends have emerged in healthcare overall including:
- Consolidation
- Cost reduction
- Distribution model changes
- Supplier model changes
- Data-driven decision making
When considering these five trends, it is no surprise that healthcare has seen a shift away from standalone facilities to larger hospital systems. This is also due, in large part to the fact that health systems are faced with overseeing non-acute sites causing their supply chains to become progressively complicated. In an effort to simplify their supply chains, hospitals have also begun to move away from hospital-distributor supply chains as they shift toward Amazon-based models.
Beyond these five broader industry shifts, three trends have emerged in healthcare supply chain specifically.
- The first trend emphasizes supply chains and tech. It is the necessity of supply chains to be constantly evolving and capable of quickly responding to technological changes. It is imperative that supply chains are both able to streamline procedures and able to evolve with technology.
- Secondly, we are seeing a shift as supply chains are modeled more like businesses. Supply chain has become one of the key areas for opportunity as hospitals seek to streamline IT systems capable of providing real time analytics that can be used for both short and long-term solutions which can in turn lead to cost reductions across various areas.
- Last, healthcare supply chains have become increasingly focused on customer satisfaction. One key component of contemporary supply chains is telehealth which simultaneously allows greater transparency for patients into coverage costs in conjunction with reduced costs for organizations as care does not always rely on brick-and-mortar type healthcare.
Healthcare supply chain offers a unique opportunity for hospitals to both reduce costs and improve patient care as they strive to succeed under value-based reimbursement models. As the landscape of healthcare continues to change, leaders are looking to supply chains to help guide strategy. For related articles, follow us on LinkedIn.
To read more, visit https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/supply-chain/3-ways-to-understand-healthcare-supply-chain-in-a-changing-market.html.
