December 8, 2022 – Laura Kowalczyk is the vice president of supply chain and support services at UAB Medicine. Read an excerpt from The Journal of Healthcare Contracting’s “Women Leaders in Supply Chain” below.
In what ways has the supply chain changed for the better over the last 2-3 years?
I am thankful for the attention that the COVID pandemic has placed on the healthcare supply chain. All of us who have been in the profession for years have never doubted the supply chain’s importance to our clinical operations, but the pandemic highlighted its level of criticality and importance to patient care. With this added attention, we are experiencing both internal organizational as well as external industry focus on what resources are needed to support our disrupted supply chains. These resources include labor, data analytics, industry transparency and broadened clinical attention and participation.
What about its challenges? What keeps supply chain leaders up at night heading into late 2022?
I continue to be concerned about our labor force from two perspectives. First, like our clinical counterparts, the supply chain teams have been and continue to be disrupted by the impacts of the COVID pandemic globally and locally. Disruptions continue to exist on a daily basis and this is taxing our teams resulting in burnout and increased turn-over rates. Secondly, I am concerned about where we will continue to find talented staff to join our supply chains. Our industry continues to compete with our retail, automotive and manufacturing counterparts who may be able to offer schedules and benefits that are not necessarily available in our 365, seven day per week healthcare environment. Additionally, the increased acceptance and movement toward a remote workforce in our corporate teams can be a double-edged sword. We find increased responses to openings in these areas; however, we are also competing nationally on salary rates which has added a new challenge to recruitment for these positions.
To see the rest of our Women Leaders in Supply Chain list, click here.