Neil Olderman, partner at law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, and president of Drinker Biddle & Reath's consulting firm Innovative Health Strategies, counsels hospital and health system clients on group purchasing arrangements, capital equipment acquisitions, as well as clinical and purchased services agreements.
Mr. Olderman shared the following supply chain tip with Becker's ASC Review:
"We have seen a focus in the past on price and standardization initiatives. In the normal progression, we would expect to see more cost-saving initiatives around utilization, reduction of waste in connection with custom procedure trays, and improvement of inventory management systems and ordering systems. We expect and have seen tremendous opportunity in addressing utilization through use of data, comparing outcomes and trends with blood products, drugs and even supplies. The data is powerful, enlightening and can deliver meaningful results if cleansed properly, shared openly and used to counsel surgeons and staff appropriately. Even cleaning up physician preference card inconsistencies, old information and duplicate information will bear fruit immediately in terms of supply chain operations."