Supply Chain View from the Field

Category Archives: Healthcare Supply Management

1. Healthcare Reform Begins with Comparative Cost Effectiveness: A Revolution in Healthcare Management

   January 24, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Healthcare Supply Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management

   Josh Feldstein from the Center for Applied Value Analysis came to speak in my class today, and provided a fascinating view of the future for healthcare. CAVA started off as a spinoff of Josh’s medical education firm.  He could clearly see that the industry was changing, and healthcare clients managing large hospitals were asking for [...]

   [No comments]

2. Supreme Court Passes ObamaCare – but the Real Work Lies Ahead…

   June 29, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Healthcare Supply Management

   The passing of the Obama Healthcare Reform Act, and the subsequent vote by the Supreme Court that the requirement that forces individuals to pay a tax if they do not comply, is perhaps not as surprising as the press would have you believe.  As I’ve noted in prior blogs, “Obamacare is simply a symptom of [...]

   [2 comments]

3. A new way of looking at the biopharma industry

   June 1, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Biopharmaceutical Supply Chain, Forecasting, Healthcare Supply Management, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Risk, Supply Chain Strategy

   My new book comes out this month, which focuses on the biopharma supply chain and the numerous trends and challenges that exist today, and which will continue to occur down the road.. Titled “Distribution, Regulatory, Systems, and Structural Changes in Biopharmaceutical Supply Chain”, the book covers the major themes and changes in the biopharmaceutical supply [...]

   [No comments]

4. The Lowly UNSPSC Is Moving up in the Supply Chain World!

   January 27, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, Forecasting, Global Supply Chain, Healthcare Supply Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management

   The inauspicious UNSPSC (United Nations) code began as a historical marriage between the UN code set and a code set with a commercial concern (Dunn & Bradstreet).  The focus initially was to begin to drive some standardization in the way that products were coded, and overcome the challenges with the many different proprietary coding systems [...]

   [No comments]

5. The New Era of Healthcare Visibility Compliance

   October 7, 2011
   by: handfield
   categories: Biopharmaceutical Supply Chain, Healthcare Supply Management, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management

   At a recent conference held by Tracelink (Nexus Conference, New Brunswick, NJ, Septmber 2011), Bob Celeste from the GS1 organization shared his views on how the new era of visibility in the healthcare landscape is evolving. Visibility is a term which comprises the entire space including subsets defined as Track & Trace/Traceability. This term can [...]

   [No comments]

6. Don’t blame Obama for the malaise of healthcare…

   October 5, 2011
   by: handfield
   categories: Biopharmaceutical Supply Chain, Forecasting, Healthcare Supply Management, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management

   Over the last eight years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with many different participants in the healthcare supply chain: drug manufacturers, Group Purchasing Organizations, retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies, physicians, consultants, academics, clinical researchers, third party logistics providers, pharmacy benefits managers, and others. Over this period, the level of anxiety has been mounting considerably, culminating [...]

   [2 comments]

7. Facing the Quagmire of Accountable Care and Comparative Effectiveness

   September 13, 2011
   by: handfield
   categories: Healthcare Supply Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Systems

   Attending the IDN Summit in Phoenix today, one wouldn’t know by the relaxed atmosphere at the beautiful Arizona Biltmore that there is significant tension in the air….until you sit down and talk to a few of the supply chain executives attending. There are several big themes that are dominating the conversation, and number one on [...]

   [No comments]

8. Re-thinking Healthcare Transportation

   May 20, 2011
   by: handfield
   categories: Healthcare Supply Management

   I recently had an article posted in the Journal of Healthcare Transportation. The article goes into one area of healthcare that is often overlooked…..transportation. When you think about it , elements such as lab specimens, patient records, files, X-rays, and other documents are critical to physician decision-making. When these items are lost, time is wasted, [...]

   [No comments]

9. Spend Management Solutions for the Healthcare Industry: An Industry Assessment

   July 29, 2010
   by: handfield
   categories: Healthcare Supply Management, Supply Chain Management

   Spend Management in HealthcareThe SCRC recently conducted an industry study, led by Dr. Handfield, and four MBA students (Ragesh Rajan, Rahul Sharma, Sangrum Chavan, and Swetha Menta) on the current state of spend management solutions in healthcare. A spend analysis was often viewed as a one-time annual event to derive budgeting estimates, and develop insights [...]

   [No comments]

10. Why Healthcare Needs to Think About Spend Management Solutions

    July 17, 2010
    by: handfield
    categories: Healthcare Supply Management, Supply Chain Management

    Healthcare providers are facing continued lower operating margins, increased risks and potentially once-in-a-lifetime health care reform.  With this backdrop, there is an increasing focus on Supply Chain Management as a means to minimize risk, optimize operating costs, improve revenue, improve operating margin and hence enable the hospital to better serve the patient.  Executives are now [...]

    [4 comments]

11. Non-Healthcare Supply Chain Tools for the Healthcare Problem

    June 8, 2010
    by: handfield
    categories: Healthcare Supply Management, Supply Chain Management

    Much of the discussion in the past year has focused on the “broken” healthcare system, and the problems associated with the ever-escalating costs.  Pay for performance, insurance mechanisms, pharmaceutical drug rebates, and multiple other “tweaks” have been put forward.  Those of us who work in supply chain-related fields have seen this before, and know that [...]

    [No comments]