Matt Mayer
Matthew S. Mayer
- Vice President, Material Resources, Corporate Office, Franciscan Alliance, Inc.
- Franciscan Alliance consists of seven hospitals; 14 campuses; annual supply spend of $200 million; annual pharmacy spend of $90 million; annual capital spendof $120 million to $200 million.
Matthew S. Mayer began his career as a production buyer for RCA Corporation, before joining Franciscan Alliance as group purchasing contract administrator in 1988. In 2005, he assumed his current role in which he oversees contracting for supplies and equipment, including administration of the HealthTrust Purchasing Group (HPG) agreement portfolio, as well as Franciscan Alliance agreements; central purchasing; equipment purchase bundling and standardization; and his organization’s central supply chain division.
The Journal of Healthcare Contracting: What has been the most challenging and rewarding project you have been involved in recently?
Matthew S. Mayer: One project in particular has involved working with our hospitals, physicians and HPG SourceTrust to save almost $6 million annually on orthopedic total joint and spinal implants. In addition, I have been working with our internal materials management teams to reduce our supply costs per CMI-adjusted discharge for six straight years. Franciscan Alliance has had some of the lowest supply cost ratios in healthcare, per independent analysis.
JHC: Please describe a project you look forward to implementing in the next year or two.
Mayer: We look forward to starting – and supporting – a physician-led clinical use/evaluation committee in the surgery area, focused on clinically sensitive items. The goal is to reduce variation and optimize value, from the standpoint of cost, quality and outcomes. We have done well working with our cardiologists for many years, and we now need a similar structure in surgery. [We will focus on] maximizing the value of our internal support resources, (i.e., warehouses, print shops, capital equipment, etc.), and reducing variation and replication in our supply chain operations.
JHC: What are the most important qualities you look for in a supplier partner?
Mayer: We look for suppliers that are responsive, anticipate our health system’s needs and follow-up. [Our suppliers must demonstrate] the ability to help us deliver better care at a lower cost, rather than simply looking at us as a sales potential. It’s also important that they have a big-picture understanding of healthcare and all of the attendant pressures we are dealing with, so that our business partners can better meet our needs.
JHC: What is the greatest change we can expect to see in healthcare contracting in the next five years?
Mayer: We will see more committed contracting in the clinically sensitive item space (i.e., physician preference items) when working with our physician leaders, particularly around implantable devices. We will need to work with physician leaders to be more involved in supply chain initiatives, such as bulk buys, supplier negotiations, product standardization and keeping our physician peer groups working as a cohesive whole. We will also see more RFID/RTLS adoption for equipment and high dollar supply items. Finally, with any luck, we will see more focus on the means by which we power our hospitals – for instance by using sustainable energy sources, such as solar, wind and geo-thermal, as well as lithium ion batteries for storage, etc. Hospitals consume a tremendous amount of power, the vast majority of it derived from fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels contributes to air pollution, which in turn negatively affects our patients.