OR Manager April 2022 - 18
OR Business
BY CARISA BREWSTER
Impact of supply chain crisis on surgical services
hat happens when global
supply chains-which are already
typically operated lean
across the board-are hit with a once-ina-century
pandemic? An ongoing, collective
lesson in economics. The problem
is not hard to understand: COVID-19
shutdowns brought manufacturing to a
near standstill, during which time the
demand for goods increased, and now
there is a shortage of workers at shipping
yards and warehouses.
How have these supply chain woes
impacted hospital ORs? According to
a November 2021 Fierce Healthcare
article, hospital executives and supply
managers believe the pandemic has uncovered
soft spots in the supply chain,
and that organizations could be doing
more to fine-tune efficiencies.
In a discussion with directors of surgical
services and supply chain administrators
from health systems Swedish
Health Services, CommonSpirit Health,
El Camino Health, and MyMichigan
Health, collaboration and communication
were pinpointed as key among the
different strategies executed at
their
organizations that helped them navigate
OR supply chain issues.
Inflation hits the supply chain
M. Trevor Bennett, MSN,
RN, CNOR, executive
director of surgical services
at Swedish Health,
Seattle, Washington,
says the institution sees
good throughput in its
supply chain, but an
emerging challenge is inflationary
pressures.
W
In the summer of 2021 and into early
2022, the world saw two significant
COVID-19 surges because of the Delta
and Omicron variants. Despite being
a milder variant, Omicron still caused
severe strains for hospitals. Surgeries
halted, something that Bennett says
had not happened at Swedish since the
first wave. With increasing supply costs,
it becomes even more imperative to anticipate
COVID-19 surges and find ways
to manage them when they happen.
" This idea of curtailing surgery to
transform staffing matrices is not panning
out. It didn't work in 2020, nor
2021, and here we are doing it again in
2022, " Bennett says. " And it's not just
a cost concern; quality patient care is
at serious risk. Someone goes in for a
mammogram, a mass is identified, and
what today would be a lumpectomy becomes
a mastectomy in 3 months. Simple
pinnings and orthopedics are turning
into fusions because we waited. "
As for the human supply chain, Bennett
says using high salaries alone to
increase retention is not sustainable,
nor is money all that people are seeking.
Leaders need to start asking: For
the people who stay at organizations
full-time and forgo travel assignments,
why do they stay put?
M. Trevor
Bennett, MSN,
RN, CNOR
" Suppliers are starting to increase or
be less willing to renegotiate our rates, "
Bennett says. " Our supply chain is
starting to encounter inflation increases
without any change in our payer mix.
This will have a huge impact, especially
when you think about perioperative services
being the financial driver of most
hospitals. "
18
OR Manager | April 2022
Organizations will need to figure out
what non-monetary incentives works for
them. Bennett thinks healthcare organizations
need to reconsider the standard
shift schedule of the past: three 8-hour
shifts-day, afternoon, night-five days
a week. The change to 12-hour shifts is
relatively recent. " A lot of nurses don't
want that 12-hour day because maybe
they can't find a daycare or have some
other family obligation, " Bennett says. " I
tell my staff that I expect them to work
hard while they're here, but that they
aren't married to this place. If I don't
lean into that, I'll lose them. "
Have perioperative specialists at
the system level
Brian Dawson, MSN, RN, CNOR, CSSM,
system VP of perioperative
services at CommonSpirit
Health, Chicago,
Illinois, says that
other than the struggle
to find personal protective
equipment (PPE)
during the first months
of the pandemic, unlike
almost everywhere else,
Brian Dawson,
MSN, RN,
CNOR, CSSM
CommonSpirit has not had any supply
chain issues. He credits this feat to
CommonSpirit's large size, robust supply
chain, and buying power.
When the pandemic hit, he says the
VP of infection prevention, supply chain
representatives, and himself were " tied
at the waist. "
" We have the fourth largest supply
chain system in the country, " Dawson
says. " Anything having to do with the
OR, I have three people on it. We have
others in contracting and supply chain
that only focus on specialty services like
orthopedics, neurosurgery, etc. "
Dawson also emphasizes communication
and specialization. At his institution,
there are people at the system
level who focus only on perioperative-
implementation specialists for supply
chain at hospitals in each division-and
a supply chain leader for each division.
" There's a system, across our enterprise,
of supply chain individuals who,
when COVID hit, were all on the same
sheet of music, " Dawson says.
Unfortunately, the free-standing city
hospitals that are primarily Medicare- and
Medicaid-focused will struggle unless they
belong to a buying service, like Premier.
" They negotiate the best price for
a conglomerate of hospitals, although
CommonSpirit is so big we can sometimes
get a better price than Premier, "
Dawson says.
Plan ahead and get creative
At El Camino Health, Mountain View,
California, Kristin Varnes, MSN, BSN,
RN, CNOR, interim clinical educator,
says that sterile processing departwww.ormanager.com
http://www.ormanager.com
OR Manager April 2022
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of OR Manager April 2022
OR Manager April 2022 - 1
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