AACN: how nurses, materials managers can work together to improve supply chain issues

Healthcare Purchasing News, August, 2004 by Rick Dana Barlow, Jeannie Akridge

ORLANDO -- Not only should nurses and materials managers collaborate for the benefit of their organizations and their patients but they also should work together for the improvement of their facilities' supply chain.

A panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) here in late May explored some of the ways to make it happen.

Last month, Healthcare Purchasing News, which sponsored two panel discussions at the conference, explored the concept of nursing and materials management working together on effective buying strategies, the focus of the first panel.

The second session in the series, also moderated by HPN Senior Editor Rick Dana Barlow, took the topic a step further, focusing on "How Nurses and Materials Managers can Improve Supply Chain/Inventory Issues Affecting Patient Care." Speakers included Ian Crassweller, Director of Marketing, Temperature Management, Kimberly Clark Health Care; and Deb Laughon, R.N., BSN, MS, DBA, Manager of Systems Improvement for Lakeland (FL) Regional Medical Center. Langhon is also an AACN Director and on the faculty for University of Phoenix, (Orlando, FL), teaching Masters programs for healthcare science and nursing.

Crassweller opened the discussion by sharing remarks from a meeting involving CEOs of 35 of the largest integrated health networks in the country, along with manufacturers. "We were talking about products and new technology and how hospitals assess those new technologies. But I think their comments are relevant to the issue of supply chain and inventory management. One comment was that, if the CEO really wanted to find out what was going on in the hospital ... they talked to the nurses. What it reflects is that, when dealing with patient care issues, you need to go to the source of the information. If you wart to consider a new product or new technology, or improvements to supply chain issues, the most successful strategy" is to ... approach the issue from the perspective of a patient care focus rather than a process focus.

"... When we're in our day-to-day lives, doing things on the floor, caring for patients and dealing with those issues directly in front of us, we tend to lose sight of those concepts. But, as nurses, if you want to find out how things are working and if you want to make improvements to ... the supply chain, you need to understand how things are working on the patient care floor, how good the processes are that they're using, what the gaps are, what the areas of improvement are. I think if you approach them from a patient care impact perspective, you're going to gain a lot more in impact on the primary objective, which is patient care."

He added, "It is often the cause that improved patient care effects, also have cost reduction and cost management impacts. I think that's often overlooked."

Crassweller then discussed the dynamics of the nurse-material manager relationship. "From what I've heard and seen there tends to be an adversarial relationship between nurses and materials management. And I have never under stood that. Because if you consider that nurses understand--on a day to day basis--what the patient care issues are, and you think about the role of materials management, it strikes me that the relationship (between the nursing staff and materials management) offers a perfect bridge between those two issues.

"But it requires that you carefully manage that relationship. It requires nurses to go beyond understanding patient care impacts, and be able to articulate them, look for improvements, and articulate how those improvements can improve costs. It also requires the materials management team to look beyond line-by-line budget issues and consider how patient care is sues can impact costs on a broader scale ...

"Also, looking from a manufacturer's or distributor's perspective at the supply chain, you should challenge us to ... provide clinical data and cost in use data that applies to real life situations."

Laughon then offered her opening comments, "When I was asked to speak, my initial thoughts about product supply, and applying those to critical care patients and critical nurses is that those issues are not really unique to critical care. They may become more urgent and important and have a higher dollar value, but when in an acute care setting, all clinicians have challenges facing them when the products they need for that patient are nut available."

To illustrate her point, she related an anecdote from her experience in the hospital. "Nurses have a historical ability to be so creative. We've been known to even hide I.V. pumps in the ceiling tiles because we don't have time In go look for them. I see you smiling", she laughed. "But that's a real example of how challenged the nurse might be to have what she needs for that patient. It becomes a very powerful issue."

She explained the importance of collaboration between nurses and materials management, and the momentum toward that end over the years. Yet at the same time she noted, "There's a barrier to that collaboration. We don't talk the same language. And often when I visit a clinical area, those folks are so busy running around, they're not listening. They don't know that when we bring them something and say 'look at this and tell me what you think', it means they're going to get this next week ... The collaboration needs to be very succinct and articulate from both sides."