I have been in the Healthcare Supply Chain for almost 27 years.  Twenty of those years were in the federal government sector, five in for profit healthcare (similar to grad school, meaning I learned allot) and now the last two years in not for profit.  Interestingly, all sectors have similar issues and goals.  Certainly when I first started in this wonderful career field the goal was never run out of anything.  This meant seamless uninterrupted support to the clinicians was King with not much concern about cost.  The last few years I was in the employ of our great nation, the government started to move towards just in time inventory, six sigma, etc.  My next five years in the for profit world with HCA Healthcare, the focus on the Supply Chain was supply expense reduction and the most efficient supply chain operations.  HCA did it right.  There is now tremendous interest in the not for profit world to mimic if not duplicate the HCA Supply Chain model.  For example Sisters of Mercy ROI has not only duplicated the HCA model, it has also gone further in some other areas like their developing their own product line\private label.  Here at Texas Childrens Hospital the largest Childrens hospital in the United States we are working daily to reduce supply expense and to work smarter not harder.  In the last 22 months we have $10.3M in documented supply expense savings.  We have reduced FTE by 13, while increasing our customer support and we have just begun.  We have a three year plan; Good To Great in ’08, Great To Excellence in ’09, and Excellence to Eminence in ’10.  We have the support of our Execs and have made tremendous progress.  Stay tuned as we take “baby steps” on our way to Supply Chain excellence.

 Terry Cox - Director, Supply Chain - Texas Childrens