Healthcare Supply Chain Essay

An old adage says: What gets measured gets managed. In the absence of clear responsibility and accountability for suppliers in the healthcare supply chain, too little gets measured and managed. Unlike the past supplier-provider relationship which was chiefly transactional, the emphasis is now on responsible patient care that has made it important to bring suppliers into the fold and hold them accountable. Here’s how it can be done:

* Using a supplier risk scorecard: Evaluating and measuring supplier performance through supplier scorecards, which are standardized throughout the enterprise, can help in understanding, managing and decreasing risks. For example, you can find true cost of supplier relationships using this scorecard. A vendor with very poor health or IT risk controls is likely to suffer from a higher probability of breach. Using industry averages, if you find that such a breach will cost you an additional $100, 000 the price discount offered by the vendor needs to be adjusted against that additional risk premium.

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Thanks to their knowledge together with years of scientific research and trials, suppliers can help. For example, from monitoring congestive-heart-failure patients to helping healthcare providers manage chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart failure, such patient-centric relationships with suppliers will facilitate appropriate use of resources, encourage quality patient care and bring accountability to the process. Though suppliers today give rebate checks based on bulk purchase by providers, the future may see the reverse where providers issue checks to their suppliers depending on higher levels of performance of delivered