April 24, 2023 – Dasha Tretiu is the Director of Strategic Sourcing for Novant Health in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Read an excerpt from The Journal of Healthcare Contracting’s “Future Leaders”.
What do you like about working in the healthcare supply chain? Was it a position you sought out or found out about once you began working in the field?
I like knowing that the work that we do is valuable. Even though we do not directly care for our community’s health, I know that our work is essential in making sure that our physicians and clinicians have the product and services that they need to treat those most vulnerable, while at the same time our healthcare system remains competitive in the market.
I learned about the strategic sourcing department while I was an intern at Novant Health. I was immediately interested and worked my way to being part of the team.
In what ways has the supply chain changed over the last 2-3 years from your perspective?
All supply chains faced unprecedented pressures with the COVID-19 pandemic over the last few years, but none more than healthcare supply chains. We had to mitigate unprecedented backorders, identify unconventional sources of PPE, and ensure that our teams are safe – all while caring for our communities.
In general, supply chains are becoming more automated so there’s a lot of investment in technology and raw materials. Products are becoming more expensive, so there’s added pressure to reduce expenses. And the legal and compliance landscape is becoming stricter and more demanding.
We are all facing barriers to an efficient operation. Certain lean operation practices don’t work in healthcare anymore because we cannot end up in a situation where we don’t have enough supplies to care for our patients. Overstocking in certain instances is driving up demand and consequently prices.
In our supply chain, we used to advocate for vendor market share commitment and standardization to drive out variation and get more aggressive prices. But today, with so many backorders across multiple service lines, we can no longer accommodate that practice, so we are changing the way we contract. Unfortunately, vendors are not always supportive of multi-source contracts when they used to enjoy majority market share in a category, and we must make decisions when there’s a tradeoff between savings and supply stability.
Read more in the latest issue of The Journal of Healthcare Contracting.