Education & Distance Learning Enthusiasts- Material managers are at a crossroads; need help

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Material managers are at a crossroads; need help

Healthcare Purchasing News - September 1, 2000

I changed careers from telecommunications manufacturing to healthcare a little over four years ago. My reasons for changing industries were numerous, but it generally boiled down to two things: I wanted to service others, and I wanted to be in a more humane environment.

I was not prepared for what I found. The healthcare industry was not at the same level I was accustomed to operating in.

Your No. 1 priority is still to service your customers, but it is more difficult to plan in healthcare because most of your customers are dealing with the unknown.

You cannot predict that you are going to admit 10 patients or 100 patients at any given time. We are dealing with life or death on a daily basis. When you are in a business environment, you are not. The decisions that you are faced with are more critical as a result.

Industrywide, it seems that many of the staff in healthcare materials departments either do not have college degrees - or if they do. they have gone back to school while working. It is very difficult to do that, though, because the demands are high and tuition reimbursement is not always adequate.

As hospital costs have continued to increase, the industry has faced tough times in both salary and benefits compensation for its employees. With lower salaries, people cannot afford to go back to school. Within the business industry, companies promote the continual education of their employees - and pay for it. In the healthcare industry, things are very difficult because money is so tight.

I agree that material managers in healthcare are at a crossroads because they have not been prepared for where healthcare needs to go to survive. The proper training has not been made available to the service organizations in healthcare. They have been faced with accountability and responsibility, but they have not had the proper tools and staff to deal with it appropriately. In general, material managers have not had enough training as far as the execution of meeting the customer's expectations.

Material managers are not prepared to deal with everything that is being asked of them today, which, of course, is not supposed to impact their service levels. You must have multiskilled staffs who are qualified to do multiple tasks because you are not going to have as many of them.

I am excited and invigorated to work within the Alexian Brothers Healthcare System. They are responsive to the needs of the industry and are always on the cutting edge, whether it is through technology, resources, or state-of-the-art equipment and processes.

But many have different situations.

Must be willing to pay

Hospital materials management is definitely moving away from what it used to do. It is no longer acceptable to be driven and controlled by salespeople. Workplace ethics, fraud and abuse, to mention just a few, have forced healthcare managers to operate in a more controlled environment similar to where businesses have gone. There is also a definite need for inventory control because costs have become so out of control.

Healthcare s such a dynamic industry, but it needs to implement some of the practices of the business industry. In general, healthcare needs to devote resources in a more technologically sound manner, and we must be willing to pay for the expertise to get us where we need to be.

The use of consultants must be curtailed so that the industry can invest in its own employees so that they can continue to keep up with society in general.

E-commerce is a great example of how far behind most healthcare entities are with technology. As the healthcare industry looks at where its dollars are being spent, material managers are under additional scrutiny. There is so much money to be saved - if we all would put some focus and qualified resources into the service areas.

Traditionally, when money was not such an issue, clinical services held the front position. Now that we have a changing business model, we must pay more attention to the service side of healthcare. There needs to be a perfect balance between the clinical and the service side of healthcare in order to be best in class. The proper personnel have to be hired to help achieve that balance, or the industry will suffer at the very best - and not survive at the very worst.

Gina Basenhofer is Corporate Director of Materials Management, Alexian Brothers Health System, Elk Grove Village, IL.

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