By Dave Hunter

By Dave Hunter

After 33 years in healthcare supply chain I am retiring this December. I have had the privilege of spending all those years serving in Catholic Healthcare. Providence Health & Services has been my home for 27 of those 33 years. Working in Catholic Healthcare is not an occupation nor a job but a calling to serve the mission of the founding sisters of our organizations.

I started in healthcare 6 months before DRG’s started. My first hospital thought the world of healthcare would end because the government would not pay what it cost to provide healthcare. Needless to say coming from outside I saw thousands of ways to reduce cost. That has been the journey of supply chain for many years now. It has been great to see supply chain, then materials management, rise from the basement loading dock to the C-Suite.

When I began there were no computers and the key record of truth outside of pulling invoices was travelling requisition cards. Only we “old timers” remember what they were. When PC’s started we implemented a great little system called ESI. I remember justifying that first system by sharing a graph that showed our battery usage going up before camping season, hunting season, and Christmas. Our executives could not believe that staff would “borrow” batteries for their flashlights and Christmas toys.

We used to stay late at month end to print out volumes of printed reports before purging our system of past month data to start the new month. There was item history maintained but department data had to go because memory was not large enough. Remember there was no word processing, certainly not Word nor Excel. And presentations were done on clear slides that were shown on overhead projectors. I remember working on spreadsheets with a ten key calculator to show our spend history. Now this is done with the press of a button.

I have also been privileged to see the changes in healthcare over the years. I remember when this thing called an MRI was first mentioned. We were not sure Medicare would pay for it. The advances that we have seen in cardiology, orthopedics, and in robotic surgery have been astounding. On a personal note I have benefited by many of these healthcare technologies. My health today is much better than if I had retired in 1983. I have been a cancer survivor for the past 10 years. My early diagnosis and treatment was something my father did not have when he died at my age from cancer.

Younger members of today’s supply chain will 20 years from now have to explain to their younger colleagues about the written medical record. For that is the progress that healthcare has been and will continue to be on. Many folks remark that healthcare supply chain remains behind industry. While some of our physical systems may need upgrading I believe instead that healthcare supply chain is at the forefront of healthcare change. Now more than ever is needed the business and clinical acumen that supply chain brings to healthcare finance and clinical outcomes. Reducing variation in practice is both optimal clinically and financially. The supply chain leaders today have the future in your hands. I know you will continue to charge forward on the path we have created before you.

Blessings!