April 20, 2023 – A career in healthcare supply chain allows for working with, learning from, and befriending a wide variety of people who contribute to care delivery in countless ways. Physicians are one of many groups of key stakeholders for the supply chain. Not only are physicians important when making certain product decisions, they are also valuable partners while operating the overall supply chain as a service.
It has been an interesting journey from how healthcare organization supply chains worked with physicians before COVID-19, how valuable it was to work closely together in the depths of COVID-19 and how those experiences are changing as we come out of the pandemic to enter our new normal. Physician engagement has numerous opportunities and is critical to the success of the healthcare supply chain.
Working with physicians has always been a rewarding experience for me and it has advanced in various healthy ways. For many years, most time spent with physicians involved engaging them to make selection decisions and contracting strategies for physician preference items. Influenced by COVID-19, physician engagement has evolved to affect different aspects of hospital and health system operations. This new and different engagement has had lasting positive results in these healthcare organizations and, specifically, for the supply chain.
Read more in the latest issue of The Journal of Healthcare Contracting.