A New Outlook

As many of you know, my company, Healthcare Business Media, took over the IDN Summit and Expo in the fall of 2008. It’s been an exciting ride during these past 18 months. Along with the normal issues associated with acquiring a business, we’ve had to navigate the crosswinds of a very difficult recession, and now face the uncertain terrain of healthcare reform in Washington in 2010 and beyond.

One thing is certain though, and that is that the Federation of American Hospitals will take Washington by storm (let’s hope it’s not another snowstorm) from Feb. 28 to March 3. When we first started surveying healthcare supply chain executives in 2008, the federation’s annual Public Policy Conference and Business Exposition stood out as a can’t-miss event. I came to understand that one of the biggest reasons for that was the outstanding work that the federation’s senior VP for administrative services, Bonnie Moneypenny, and her staff do to coordinate the expo.

I got to know Bonnie and Marci Freeman (director of administrative services) one very snowy, icy day in Little Rock, Ark., over lunch last January and have so enjoyed working with them. Anyone working in the for-profit hospital space should go to the federation meeting. Check out the Web site for more information. And when you get to Washington, make sure you say hello to those fabulous women who make the federation expo such a valuable event.

Other developments in 2010 may not be as clear as the decision to attend the federation confab.

There are numerous 2010 planning outlooks available but one I find interesting is PricewaterhouseCoopers’ new (and aptly titled) report, “Top 10 Health Industry Issues: Squeezing the Juice out of Healthcare.” The report offers a lot of helpful tips, including those for handling the coming tide of new regulations from healthcare reform.  

I have been following Bob Ferrari’s Supply Chain Matters blog, and he has five interesting predictions for 2010 for the global supply chain. His most recent post will take you back to his previous predictions. The new entry has predictions focusing on carbon tracking and sustainability. In a bit of research among senior healthcare supply chain executives that we’re going to be releasing in the next couple of weeks, it appears that sustainability is not as high a priority for these executives as current opinion may suggest. We found that only five percent of the executives’ surveyed suggested sustainability was an immediate or long-term concern. This tracks with the findings of research we’ve previously done on requested topic areas for the IDN Summits.

For those of you needing assistance with New Year’s resolutions, let me suggest Pat Wardwell’s “Lean Resolutions.” Pat is COO of the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership, and his resolutions appear in the wonderful “Running a Hospital” blog of Paul Levy, the president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. A simple resolution that caught my eye: “Ask five different people who work for you ‘what can be improved’ at least once a week.”

There is one person who for years has helped healthcare executives make sense out of a complicated world, and that is Chuck Lauer. We’re excited to announce we’ll be working with Chuck on an even more in-depth basis this year. Chuck will be providing us with his “Insights” column on a biweekly basis. We are so appreciative to have his guidance as we move forward in 2010. Chuck will also be leading his very popular CEO Discussions at both of the IDN Summits this year. (The Spring Summit is April 20-22 in Orlando, Fla., and the Fall Summit is Sept. 21-23 in Phoenix.)

While there are numerous blogs and commentary available to you, I hope to use this space to offer readers the insights that IDN Summit and Healthcare Business Media can provide concerning the healthcare supply chain space. If you’ve got something to share, please post a comment below to continue this discussion.

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