Global Healthcare Exchange: 5 trends influencing healthcare supply chain innovation

In a fast-changing healthcare environment, the supply chain continues to be a strategic area in which to help lower costs. Global Healthcare Exchange, a cloud-based supply chain software provider, has identified five key drivers of supply chain innovation that it said is leading the change.

Click through the gallery to see the five key supply chain trends.

Suppliers and providers are faced with an ever-increasing volume of regulations and federal guidelines with which they must comply. These include the Food and Drug Administration’s Global UDI Database (GUDID), which requires that manufacturers ensure devices, including medical-surgical implantables, are assigned a unique device identifier and listed in the GUDID by specific deadlines. They also include compliance with new HIPAA requirements, such as the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights Audit Program regarding covered entities and business associates. An automated supply chain, according to Global Healthcare Exchange, is critical for suppliers and providers to remain compliant with these regulations and guidelines in a cost-effective, accurate and streamlined manner -- reducing the likelihood of significant fines and a damaged reputation due to non-compliance.

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GHE customers are reporting an increasingly “clinically-integrated” supply chain, wherein supply chain professionals and clinicians meet regularly to help ensure continuous improvements, share ideas and compare products and outcomes. Physicians, recognizing the need to adjust their processes for the patient’s greater good, are turning to the supply chain for guidance, support and knowledge on product price points. In turn, supply chain professionals are gaining clinician trust by demonstrating the value of the supply chain in supporting patient care.

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Healthcare mergers and acquisitions grew by 14 percent in 2015, according to GHE, setting a record for deal volume within the industry. Providers and suppliers haven’t been exempt from the pain that so often afflicts companies dealing with M&A -- technology hiccups, disgruntled employees and inconvenienced patients among them. The supply chain can help align disparate systems and data that touch nearly every part of the business, including purchasing, supply chain, compliance, credentialing, inventory and clinical. If addressed early in the M&A process, the supply chain can help minimize -- and even eliminate -- disruptions during the transition.

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Clean, accurate content delivered through an advanced supply chain is helping supplier and provider organizations take a more strategic and informed approach to a broad range of clinical and financial functions, including electronic health records, patient billing, recall tracking, value analysis activities and comparative effectiveness research. Content is helping organizations improve efficiencies and reduce costs throughout the entire supplier-to-patient process.

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Today, chronic disease accounts for 86 percent of national healthcare expenditures, according to GHE. This changing patient population is driving the need for a more patient-centered supply chain that supports the delivery of care where and when the patient needs it, which is not always in the hospital. Patients are the only ones who experience healthcare in an end-to-end manner, and the industry will increasingly model healthcare delivery and the supply chain such that it makes that experience more cohesive.

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