By Pete Mercer
March 2024 – The Journal of Healthcare Contracting
By John Pritchard
When you see lists of the leading U.S. healthcare supply chain teams in the country, Banner Health is always at or near the top. And rightfully so – the organization successfully completed an ambitious 20-year plan across all departments, including supply chain, that saw it go from fixing internal problems, to growing, to being a leader in clinical quality and supply chain expertise. Today the IDN has more than 52,000 team members providing services in facilities across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming. Their consolidated service center has proven incredibly valuable in helping to mitigate disruptions, and as a real estate asset when the organization needed to use it as such.
Doug Bowen, senior vice president of supply chain services and chief supply chain officer at Banner Health – and this year’s Contracting Professional of the Year – credits his team’s success to just that – the team.
Great strategies and great products do not make a great supply chain, he said. Great people make a great supply chain. “The people that run your supply chain are important,” he said. “Every member of my team has created our success. Every achievement that we’ve ever made was the result of a team effort.”
The SCS Leaders strive to create positive relationships with all their team members, ensuring they know they belong, and they are appreciated, Bowen said. “These efforts help us to hang onto the team members we have and retain them while they are on their Banner Journey.”
As today’s supply chain leaders know, retention of top talent is key. Bowen said about 90% of Banner Health’s supply chain leaders are promoted from within. That’s a healthy sign that the organization is already investing in its next 20 years of growth.
We chronicle Bowen’s four-decade journey through supply chain in this issue. We hope you enjoy reading about how he has navigated marketplace changes, the pandemic, and encouraging the next generation of supply chain leaders. It’s “Strong Work!” indeed.