University of Houston Hospital Supply Chain Study Results

By Arunachalam Narayanan, David Peng, University of Houston

In the fall of 2014, the University of Houston conducted a national study on hospital supply chain. With the support and participation from the AHRMM community, the University of Houston collected data from 266 hospitals and at least 60 percent of the respondents have an official designation of supply chain director or higher. Thank you to those who participated in the study. Your contribution is invaluable in helping academic institutions, AHRMM, and collaborating organizations better understand supply chain perspectives and best practices.

 

Download the executive summary with corresponding tables (PDF File)


Download the appendix which contains the summary of survey responses (PDF File)

Supply expenses represent the second largest expense for hospitals after labor costs. Thus, effective supply chain (SC) management will greatly improve the bottom line of hospitals. This study aims to understand the supply chain practices of the hospitals in the U.S. and identify factors that are associated with hospital supply chain excellence.

Specifically, the study looks at:

  • Incentive alignment
  • SC training and competence
  • SC leadership and senior management support
  • SC processes
  • Information Systems (IS)
  • Data analytics
  • GPO relationships
  • Internal and external collaboration
  • Outsourcing

Related Resources

On-Demand Educational Webinars
Benchmarking Metrics That Make Sense
Every organization has a variety of internal and external benchmarks at their disposal. Metrics need to be practical for each individual provider,…
On-Demand Educational Webinars
The Value Cycle
In order to compare baseline costs to savings and determine areas of compliance risk, supply chain professionals need to work closely with their…
On-Demand Educational Webinars
Closing the Gap: What Can Health Care Learn from Retail
Health care costs continue to rise at an alarming rate, growing well ahead of inflation. In this webinar, we compare and contrast the education and…
On-Demand Educational Webinars
Now's the Time! We Must Engage Physicians to Reduce Costs and Improve Outcomes
This AHRMM webinar will help engage physicians to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes.
Podcasts
UDI 101: Just the Facts
As UDI capture and exchange becomes more prevalent across the healthcare ecosystem and as implantable device information is linked to patient outco
On-Demand Educational Webinars
Reduce Costs with Rep-less Model Strategic Purchasing
Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality, and quite a bit of uncontrolled variation exists in the medical device industry today. Using dis-…