Healthcare Supply Chain Tasks Are “Stressing Out” Clinicians

May 09, 2019 - Clinicians spend more than twice the time they want to on healthcare supply chain tasks, according to a survey of 306 clinicians and hospital supply chain decision makers by Cardinal Health. Twenty percent of clinicians said that supply chain tasks are "stressing them out."

The survey identified the following sources of clinical staff frustration from supply-chain-related issues:

• Missing supplies: Seventy-four percent of frontline providers (surgeons, nurses, physicians, and other clinicians) said looking for supplies that should be at hand has the most negative impact on their workplace productivity, and 84 percent of department managers (chief medical directors, cath lab managers, and operating room/theater managers) said the same
• Manual tasks: Forty-nine percent of frontline providers reported manually counting and tracking supplies, with nearly half of frontline providers saying this has a "very" or "somewhat" negative impact on their workplace productivity
• Utilization: Seventy percent of respondents said that wasting and overutilization of supplies is a significant or somewhat significant problem within the organization, and 81 percent of department managers said the same

"The burden on clinicians of non-value-added supply chain tasks creates a host of other issues in healthcare organizations. Most critically, it pulls clinical focus away from patients and adds to existing stress on the staff when retention and satisfaction is already a concern," said Lori Walker, vice president of distribution services at Cardinal Health.

"Unfortunately, many doctors and nurses feel that solving these problems is outside of their span of control, which further affects job satisfaction," said Walker.

Virtually all respondents said that supply chain management is very or somewhat important in addressing financial and human resource problems facing the organization.

Respondents said they would like their distributors to play a bigger role in improving the organization's operational performance, with 88 percent saying this capability is "very" or "somewhat" important. This is particularly true among those closest to the supply chain process, with 71 percent of supply chain personnel describing this as "very" important.

"There are solutions for improving supply chain operations, including automation, workflow simplification and storeroom optimization," said Walker. 

Hospitals Still Use Manual Process for Supply Chain Management

A recent survey by Sage Growth Partners on behalf of supply chain management vendor Syft found that close to half of hospitals still use manual processes like spreadsheets for supply chain management.

More than one-third of respondents said they use Excel or other Microsoft tools to track margins per case for operating room (OR) procedures.

One-quarter use other low-tech tools, do not know if they track OR margins, or do not track those margins, while 36 percent use a specific technology solution to track OR margins.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that investment in supply chain management is a high priority for them, but only 13 percent said it was their top operational investment priority.

Eighty-six percent of respondents believe updating their supply chain management practices would improve care quality, while around one-quarter said their hospital does not use supply chain analytics to identify ways to improve quality.

Most respondents said better supply chain management can improve hospital margins — 52 percent said better supply chain management can increase margins by 1 percent to 3 percent, and 35 percent believe it can increase margins by more than 3 percent.

“As we move towards value-based care models, hospitals are facing increasing pressures on their margins, and on their ability to deliver quality care,” said Syft CEO Todd Plesko.

Close to two-thirds of respondents said that there was a significant return on investment (ROI) for supply chain analytics, while 97 percent judged that supply chain analytics can positively impact their organizational costs.

Other areas where respondents believed supply chain analytics could have positive impact include value-based care, quality, staff satisfaction/retention, patient outcomes, and regulatory adherence.

Hospitals use several supply chain management approaches, including in-house solutions, their electronic health record a third-party solution, and outside consultants. Two in five do not analyze their supply chain at all.

Three-quarters of respondents reported using their supply chain management solutions for basic analytic functions such as tracking inventory or consolidating suppliers.

The ability for current solutions to perform more advanced functions were less frequently cited: accessing data on case cost in the OR (57 percent), identifying and managing expired supplies (50 percent), surgeon supply use variance (42 percent), and other (3 percent).

“Hospital leaders are going to need to use every tool in their toolbox to succeed, and they will need to turn the supply chain into a strategic business lever – not only to save money, but to improve clinician satisfaction, patient outcomes, and the care patients receive,” Plesko concluded.