CEO expectation: the Star Wars materiel manager of the 1990s, or C-3PO as role model

Materiel-intensive expenditures account for a significant portion of all hospital costs, second only to salaries and wages, yet materiel managers may often be overlooked as key members of the management team. This is alarming since the potential exists for materiel managers to impact annual savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars by operating efficient departments. Materiel managers have a tremendous opportunity to enhance their image and improve hospital productivity in the coming decade. The challenges of the 1990s will stretch materiel managers' skills toward enhancing their professionalism and achieving the expectations of themselves and top management. If materiel managers will effectively utilize (C3)PO they will increase their educational levels, continue to learn new skills, maintain a customer-oriented management style, exercise creativity, develop and adhere to standards, and be proactive in their responsibilities. The benefits of their success will be felt by patients, hospitals, the industry, and materiel managers everywhere.     

Hospitals and material management in the coming decade

The 1990s will be a decade of increasing dramatic and traumatic change for hospitals. Reimbursement, technology, and consumers, either alone or in concert, will be the forces that will shape hospitals in the future. At the end of the 1990s we will have hospitals that offer technology to the critically ill, outpatient surgical services, and comforting care for those in the late years of life. Material management will be important to hospitals because expense control will be as important as ever. However, I believe the role of a material manager will diminish as the services provided change and as the role is folded into the responsibilities of those who manage one of the three critical business areas hospitals will be in. This new hybrid of today's manager will still apply all of the concepts to the distribution of supplies in a hospital as today's material managers do but will use them as only a part of their overall management responsibility.     

Strategic imperatives for managing materiel into the next century

The next century of opportunity is less than a decade away. Materiel management must involve itself in the strategic changes occurring within the health care industry and its respective institutions. Those materiel managers who are aggressively ensuring that their operations are supported by a well-developed and well-orchestrated operational infrastructure are now well positioned to address the future challenges of this decade. Unfortunately, many other materiel managers are focusing their attention and efforts solely on the management of materiel for which they currently have control. Materiel managers must develop an acute awareness of the support needs of their respective organizations. Those who are not apprehensive about venturing from the traditional materiel management world will be exposed to incredible educational opportunities and will receive responsibilities of unparalleled organizational importance.     

Survival strategies in the era of managed care

The era of managed care has forced an unprecedented restructuring of the health care environment. As hospitals downsize in response, materiel managers should consider adopting strategies that may help ensure their survival, including innovative approaches to supply management and the development of individual responses that will best position them to succeed in this new reality.     

Career survival strategies for materiel managers

The skill sets and attitudes required for materiel management professional survival continue to change. Just as the industry has evolved for calculators and three-part forms, so too must today's managers evolve into facilitators and information-oriented management. While these new skills are being perfected, three focused strategies initiated right now can enhance your chance for survival. First, get to know your customers intimately. Go to their meetings. Tour their departments. Second, assume responsibility and report materiel cost data that has meaning to senior management and customers. Fill rates and inventory turns offer little value to other managers, but supply cost per discharge can be of value. Third, be proactive in competing with outsourcing competitors. Do not wait until they are on your doorstep before developing a strategy to compete.     

Empirical comparison of just-in-time and stockless materiel management systems in the health care industry

Despite the limitations, this study is the first comparative empirical investigation of two relatively new materiel management systems applied in hospitals. The results show that hospital managers have significantly rated the possibility that more effective use of some materiel management resources can be achieved by adopting either a JIT or stockless system over conventional materiel management systems.     

Materiel management and reimbursement in the American Association of Eye and Ear Hospitals

Simply stated, understanding how hospitals receive money enables materiel managers to save money. Reimbursement in the health care industry is a complex phenomenon, and the rules and regulations change annually, so that it is sometimes difficult to budget appropriately and estimate the hospital's bottom line accurately. The savvy materiel managers who can utilize the reimbursement concepts effectively will be highly regarded within their institutions.     

The 1990s: prescription for success

MCH materiel management has successfully utilized an information system to achieve the objectives of the past decade, and it is now well into accomplishing the objectives of the 1990s. Those objectives revolved around revenue enhancement, which will occur through further integration of the information system throughout the institution. Currently the information system links accounts payable, general ledger, budgeting, and, to a lesser degree, nursing and the ancillaries. However, the plan is to enhance its integration to all departments in order to control and track not only official inventory but all patient chargeable items. This system will be able to ensure that all patient chargeable items are infact billed. One should consider, for example, the revenue effect in the surgery department, considering the dollar volume of noninventory purchases. Thus it becomes apparent that for materiel management in the 1990s there are many opportunities and challenges. Management must be able to utilize the resources available to find success and excel toward achievement of future goals.     

Balancing clinical priorities in an era of diminishing resources

By learning to ask both manufacturers and clinicians why a technology is needed, how it compares to the existing technology, and whether it will eliminate the need for the existing technology and by demanding specific answers, much more rational decisions can be made, which will be in the best interests of the community the hospital serves. Materiel managers can play a key role in fostering this process. In addition, by helping department managers develop long-range multiyear plans, materiel managers can help hospitals better manage their existing assets and make better long-term purchasing decisions.     

Health care reform and the hospital supply chain

With health care reform, hospitals will be differentiated in the marketplace by how well they manage the costs of services. Because products will be market priced, hospital materiel managers will have to minimize all other related acquisition costs. The key opportunities will be in changing processes to eliminate non-value added administrative, supply chain, and process activities and their attendant costs.     

Just-in-time and stockless programs for hospitals: fad or trend?

The JIT and stockless approach to provider-supplier relationships has proven to be a win-win proposition for the partners that have implemented it in many manufacturing industries and health care organizations as well. This strategy will fundamentally impact the entire cost structure within the hospital supply distribution chain. rewards have proven attainable and more comprehensive than had been hoped in the health care applications. The sweeping changes the health care industry experienced during the 1980s are leading creative materiel managers to seize the initiative to improve the current operating costs of their hospitals. They do not want to be left behind "holding the inventory."     

Materiel management reengineering: value creation through innovation

By reengineering their department's core processes, materiel managers can expand their role in the health care setting while realizing significant cost savings. Using a team model, Inova Health System materiel management staff integrated their processes for vendor selection, purchasing, inventory reduction, and utilization across three hospitals and ancillary services. An integrated approach at all levels of the organization gained buy-in from administrators and staff systemwide.     

Materiel executives and the managed cost continuum in a capitated environment

Strategies that involve supplier partnerships and pose high risk for both hospitals and suppliers are an increasing trend. The materiel management professional who is proactive and able to assess risks in a managed care contractual environment will be the winner as materiel management becomes a network function rather than individual hospital function.     

Organizational change and survival skills for materiel managers

In an effort to be cost effective and meet changing customer needs, organizations are evolving in their structure. In this environment, leading edge organizations change their culture and create knowledge to continuously improve. Hospital materiel managers need to understand and support their organization's culture changes and respond by adapting or acquiring new skill sets.     

Restructuring materiel management functions: a method for prioritizing changes and reducing costs

The success of any manager depends highly on the ability to seize on opportunities that will achieve the organization's goals. Hospitals are currently searching for ways to reduce costs while maintaining or enhancing the quality of services. Quality services are increasingly being defined as those that are most responsive to customer needs. It is important, as hospital management restructures materiel systems or methods of operation for reduced costs, to focus on the user departments as the customers. The consolidation of materiel management activity should not be seen as a loss of control at the user department level. Instead it can be seen as a new way of providing service with higher quality. User departments should see concrete benefits on a weekly basis, including reduced time spent on materiel management functions; increased planning of purchasing, inventory, and distribution functions; and assistance in meeting restricted supply budgets.     

Children's hospitals: specialty hospitals that treat children specially

Any reader who has children will agree that they make special patients, whether at home or in the hospital. These patients have unique requirements for love and compassionate care, and children's hospitals deliver on their promises. The well-run children's hospitals researched for this article have converted their material management operational challenges to opportunities. They have built thoughtful material management strategic plans, reorganized their support services to provide customer service to end users, and they have centered their materiel management efforts around service and quality improvement.     

The new role of material managers in hospital strategic planning

The future direction and challenges of hospital strategic planning require the knowledge and skills of material managers. The approach taken in participating in hospital planning efforts is not as important as the level of involvement. Understanding the strategic planning process at the hospital and knowing what information is critical to that process will improve the ability of the material manager to become an active participant and a valuable contributor to the strategic planning process. Cost management will continue to be the overriding concern of the health care industry in the 1990s. Hospitals will reorganize to control cost and improve productivity, while striving to maintain the quality of care. Material managers must align their departments with hospital strategic goals and assert their new roles in achieving those goals.     

The role of certification in the buyer/planner position: a case study at Harley-Davidson Motor Company.

The use of buyer/planners may becoming more popular. If they are, the reason is probably that many companies are integrating materiel management skill sets as a way of increasing the effectiveness of their supply chains. Harley-Davidson recently created a supply management function composed of buyer/planners. This article describes the method it used to achieve the transition, the training plan it implemented to support the process, and the role management played in achieving success.     

The modern health care materiel manager

Today's successful materiel managers must possess a wide range of skills. They must above all be highly adaptable to change and influence others to accept rather than resist change. The role and responsibility of the materiel manager have expanded significantly, requiring higher levels of formal education. In conjunction with this, the quality of communication, both verbal and written, becomes essential. A high degree of human, conceptual, and technical skills must be employed to accommodate the many demands encountered. Finally, the successful materiel manager who feels confident and secure will hire others who do not mirror the manager's style, but rather allow for contrast of expression and technique.     

Health care system redesign: a strategic management framework

The current health care environment can best be characterized as uncertain, unfamiliar, ambiguous, unexpected, untraveled, and amorphous. All administrators and managers are facing a tremendous challenge in managing available human, technological, materiel, and fiscal resources to accomplish their organization's mission. They must be able to assess organizational environments, identify strategies to align the organization and the environment, implement these strategies, and continuously evaluate the outcomes of those strategies. Therefore, health care administrators and managers must adopt a management perspective that is responsive, dynamic, comprehensive, systematic, and both process and outcome oriented. Such a perspective is strategic management.