Ed Hardin
System vice president, CHRISTUS Health
CHRISTUS Health consists of more than 60 acute care and non-acute care sites across U.S. and Latin American operations, including Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Mexico, and Chile; 4,500 beds; $1.3 billion in supplies, drugs and purchased services; spend is managed by CHRISTUS Health supply chain management.
In December 2011, Ed Hardin left his position at ROi, a subsidiary of Mercy (St. Louis, Mo.) and joined CHRISTUS Health as system vice president. His supply chain management responsibilities include all supplies and drug spend, as well as approximately 60 percent of purchased services spend.
The Journal of Healthcare Contracting: What has been the most challenging and rewarding project you have been involved in recently?
Ed Hardin: I have been focused on the development of our Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) strategy, including the formation of our Partner Advisory Council (PAC), which serves as the most visible and unique piece of our VRM strategy. The PAC is a group complemented by 25 of CHRISTUS Health’s most strategic vendors. Each of these vendors must dedicate a single individual – ideally, an executive with little to no transactional responsibilities – to CHRISTUS Health, and meet with CHRISTUS Health on a quarterly basis. At its inception, the PAC was the only group like it in the industry, and there was initially a lot of skepticism whether it would drive value for CHRISTUS Health. However, we are in our third year, and the PAC has become wildly successful due to the many incredible individuals who saw the value of collaboration and committed their time, energy and thought leadership to make happen. Today, the PAC remains unique to the industry, but it’s a part of who CHRISTUS Health is; because of that, it is changing how the industry approaches VRM.
JHC: Please describe a project you look forward to implementing in the next year or two.
Hardin: We are taking our Partner Advisory Council international. Beginning in August, we will introduce qualified PAC members to our Latin American facilities, [and see whether they are ready] to do business in Latin America. We plan to use the PAC concept as a way to truly integrate our supply chain, including standardizing the use of the same products and services.
JHC: What is the most important quality you look for in a supplier partner?
Hardin: We are interested in such qualities as capacity and willingness to collaborate on unique and high-value solutions. In addition, we look for trust, time commitment, and consistency with our faith-based values.
JHC: What is the greatest change we can expect to see in healthcare contracting in the next five years?
Hardin: We are going to see a level of objective rigor in how we evaluate vendor performance to the extent that vendor performance – through key performance indicators – will become an everyday component of our terms and conditions. We will make decisions to continue working with vendors based upon objective data that can be readily pulled and replicated. In select areas, we will do more risk-based arrangements because of our ability to evaluate vendor performance.