Fred Genter
Vice president supply chain, Commonwealth Health Corp., Bowling Green, Ky.
Commonwealth Health is a holding company for 13 nonprofit and for-profit corporations and partnerships engaged in healthcare. It operates a PPO network and includes four acute care facilities and various physician practices. Annual supply budget of approximately $73 million.
Fred Genter joined Commonwealth Health 18 years ago as vice president of finance. He has been in his current role nearly six years, and today oversees the purchasing, distribution and courier services for a four-hospital IDN in south central Kentucky. He is responsible for all non-pharmacy supply costs, as well as ordering; stocking and distribution; negotiating contract pricing for supplies, capital and various purchased-service agreements; and overseeing the GPO relationship.
The Journal of Healthcare Contracting: What has been the most challenging and rewarding project you have been involved in recently?
Genter: I believe the most rewarding efforts have been in leveraging the GPO relationship (beyond price activating contracts). We work with our region director to target opportunities, champion conversions and address concerns. The GPO efforts also include aggregating volumes with like-minded providers who are willing to share ideas, successes and challenges they face. I am privileged to be on the sourcing committees within the GPO. Their knowledge, conviction and willingness to share has provided us with a forum to discuss contracting, operations, clinical outcomes and other areas of focus with professionals from hospitals and providers from other regions. My participation has allowed me to foster relationships, expand my resources, increase my awareness of product utilization and identify areas we need to target more aggressively.
JHC: Please describe a project you look forward to implementing in the next year or two.
Genter: The project that excites me most is clinical integration and its impact on physician preference items, supply chain processes and the consumption of healthcare services. We have invested a tremendous amount of resources into compiling, analyzing and evaluating patient quality measures, enabling us to draw a correlation between clinical outcomes, preference patterns, resource utilization, population health and the overall cost of care. I expect to see increased engagement from hospital leadership, improved awareness from the medical staff and a desire to embrace supply cost and utilization strategies. The project moves our organization toward a partnership where we share data driven performance measures with key stakeholders, provide a clear direction toward improved quality and cost, and initiate validated, replicable cost savings.
JHC: What is the most important quality you look for in a supplier partner?
Genter: We look at quality, integrity and effort on the part of a vendor’s employees, and how they choose to manage their business. We look for people who think beyond the transactional level and are vested in a relationship. And, we look for people that share a vision that is long term and focused on the hospital’s success.
JHC: What is the greatest change we can expect to see in healthcare contracting in the next five years?
Genter: Supply chain functions will be impacted by changing reimbursement strategies, an aging population, technological advancements and the use of analytics to drive quality and cost. The vendor/provider relationship will shift to where data, an increasingly engaged medical community and possibly payors will evaluate products differently and set pricing based on data-driven patient outcomes and clinical efficacy of products.