Inside the Summit

Consider Becoming an ACO

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:37:00 GMT

One aspect of the new healthcare reform legislation concerns the accountability and coordination of care between hospitals and medical groups. Becoming an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) appears to be top of mind for many health system executives.

In a recent survey that the IDN Summit conducted and complete results released next week, we found that 48% of surveyed health system executives felt that ACOs represent a major opportunity to reduce healthcare costs. This is one of the few positive aspects of health reform in the opinion of these executives. Next week we’ll release the results of the survey.

Because of this heightened interest the Fall IDN Summit will continue a conversation started at the Spring Summit on ACOs. We’ll start the conference off with a Summit Panel Discussion: What Does it Mean to be an Accountable Care Organization? This discussion will be led by Michael Randall, Manager, The Camden Group who will be joined by three panelists: Chris O’Connor, President, Nexera, Inc; Randy Walter, Executive Vice President, Contracting, Enterprise Solutions, Inquisit and Marketing, Amerinet and Steven Wegner, JD, MD, President, North Carolina Community Care Network.

Next, Frank Cirillo, Senior VP and Chief Restructuring Officer, New York Health & Hospitals Corporation and Kimberly Mulqueen, Principal, Enterprise Transformation, Health Sciences, Deloitte Consulting LLP will discuss what the NYHHC has learned about becoming an ACO during their recent reorganization in Leading Change: The Reorganization of the Nation's Largest Public Hospital System.

ACOs will be a hot topic of conversation during the Healthcare Reform Panel Discussion led by industry veteran Mike Langlois, Interim Vice President of Materials Management, Resurrection Health Care. Mike will be joined by Kimberly Mulqueen, Principal, Enterprise Transformation, Health Sciences, Deloitte Consulting LLP; David Reed, Vice President of Operations, Vice President of Healthcare Business Solutions, Corporate Compliance Officer, Cook Medical and Dr. David Tam, Chief Administrative Officer, Palomar Pomerado Hospital.

Troy Trygstad, PharmD., MBA, PhD, Director of the Network Pharmacist Program, Community Care of North Carolina rounds out Tuesday presentations on ACOs with a late afternoon session discussing the role of Pharmacy operations in an ACO. Troy presents The Role of the Health System Pharmacist in Accountable Care Organizations beginning at 2:45 pm.

Certainly Chuck Lauer will be quizzing the Thought Leadership panelists on their opinions of ACOs during Wednesday’s General Session. Chuck will be joined by Ben Cutler, CEO, US Health Group; Michael Israel, President & CEO, Westchester Medical Center and Thomas Sadvary, CEO, Scottsdale Healthcare.

A recent article from Becker’s Hospital Review does a really good job of highlighting the issues still to be resolved concerning ACOs. Read more.

Supplier Education

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:53:00 GMT

In working through the Market Strategies track for the 2010 Fall IDN Summit it occurred to us that one thing we could do more of with suppliers is 'listen'! Even though we’ve had numerous surveys of supplier attendees we’ve never had a dedicated session where we’ve engaged the supplier community during a Summit. That is changing at the Fall Summit.

Many of you know Dr. Eugene Schneller of ASU and the fine work his department has done over the years with the healthcare supply chain. For the Fall Summit we are working with the Health Sector Supply Chain Research Consortium of ASU (HSCR) to provide supplier stakeholders a forum to discuss their thoughts on the healthcare supply chain. You’ll be able to provide your input to their work, dialogue about your questions and concerns impacting the healthcare supply chain and also learn about future ‘listening’ projects from HSCR-ASU. We look forward to working with Dr. Schneller’s colleague, Dr. Natalia Wilson as she provides context to improving the healthcare supply chain by listening to supplier stakeholders. For more information please visit here. This session will last about ninety minutes and will begin at 4:15 pm on Tuesday, September 21st. (After a long day of golf/team building and four conference sessions we invite you to join the national GPOs as they host ‘Make it A Blockbuster Night! beginning at 6:00 pm)

Speaking of listening, someone who has built his career on listening to what others are REALLY saying is Chuck Lauer. He will present a one hour discussion on his observations on selling into hospitals and healthcare systems. It’s a talk you will not want to miss and Chuck will leave plenty of time for all of your questions. I’m looking forward as Greg Firestone (who is now running Mossberg Labs as its President) moderates the Q & A exchange with Chuck.

We’ve put together two panels of leading healthcare executives to provide you their thoughts on current and future trends that will impact their hospitals and health systems. Two professionals who I have really come to respect, Ed Kuklenski and Maria Hames will moderate these exchanges designed to provide the supplier community insights into the practices of health systems and GPOs. The panelists who’ll be joining Ed and Maria are: Mike Cassady, Senior Vice President, Strategic Alliances and Product Strategy, MedAssets; Larry Dooley who recently joined Smith & Nephew as its VP of National Accounts but was formerly with ROi; Kevin Gray, Vice President Supplier Relations/Business Development, Premier, Inc; David McCombs, VP, ERP/Supply Chain Operations, Bon Secours Health System, Inc.; Bill Mosser, Vice President Materials Management, FMOL Health System and Steve Pitzer, System Director Supply Chain, Christus round out both of these panels. You can learn more by clicking here.

One of the goals of the IDN Summit is to continually provide quality education to all stakeholders of the healthcare supply chain community. We’d love to hear your comments as we continue to improve the education provided at the IDN Summit. Let me know your thoughts by emailing me john@bluegrassbm.com or give me a call at 859.523.5701.

Are Keynote Speakers Important?

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:34:00 GMT

In post event surveys we always inquire why people attend events. Generally the responses always rank networking and educational sessions one and two respectively.

The quality of keynote speakers usually ranks fairly low on the reasons attendees provide to us as to why they attend events. So why do we invest and promote keynote speakers so heavily?

Very simply, we believe it says everything about what the event offers you. Quality Keynotes = Your Importance to the Event Organizer.

In a world where you can get information anytime, anyplace, when you invest the time to attend an event we believe you should feel as though you couldn’t get that level of experience anywhere else. That experience is what makes events special. Keynote speakers set the stage for the interaction that will happen not only at the event but for the days, weeks and months after the event is over. Personally I believe it is the best way to build your brand.

For example, Marcus Osborne, Senior Director of Healthcare Savings Programs and Health & Wellness Global Sourcing for Walmart was the general session keynote speaker for the Fall Summit and I still have people email me asking to assist in getting a meeting with Marcus. You can Google Marcus to find information about him and you can even watch online videos of him but hearing him live provides you with a much richer experience. These experiences, and talking with peers after the talk, help you put issues into context, provide moments of clarity and reinforce or change your thinking. If you’d like to see Marcus’ talk from last year please visit the video of his talk.

This fall we are really excited about this Keynote lineup.

Butch Lumpkin will get you inspired, motivated and ready to fulfill your dreams once you hear his incredible and dynamic story. After my first conversation with Butch I was ready to climb Mt. Everest. If you haven’t seen a video of Butch check out this video.

John Hofmeister is the former president of Shell Oil and recent author of Why We Hate Oil Companies. For many of you I bet you are wondering why in the world we would select a former oil company leader to keynote a healthcare supply chain summit. We believe John has amazing insight into burning issues within the supply chain. He has led a large worldwide organization trying to fund healthcare for his employees, his supply chain is extremely well respected, and his insights into the importance of leadership make him a perfect choice to deliver the General Session Keynote. I guarantee you that you will take something away from his talk to improve your operations.

Chuck Lauer is going to have a very interesting discussion in the upcoming edition of his Thought Leadership panel. Two health system CEOs (Michael Israel, CEO, Westchester Medical Center and Thomas Sadvary, CEO, Scottsdale Healthcare) will be joined by the leader of a large healthcare insurer (Ben Cutler, Chairman of the Board & CEO USHEALTH Group, Inc.) as they discuss what they are doing to improve healthcare.

So we believe that the quality of just one morning’s experience cannot be replicated anywhere else and that you’ll leave this Fall’s Summit by talking about these in-person experiences. Next week we’ll be releasing the full agenda that we hope helps you answer important issues impacting your organization.

Please visit the general session agenda on www.idnsummit.com for more information.

Thought Leadership

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:57:00 GMT

Approximately one year ago Chuck Lauer agreed to assist us in growing the IDN Summit community and leverage his knowledge and contacts to positively impact the healthcare supply chain. Since that time we’ve been very fortunate to have Chuck’s guidance as we bring together all aspects of the healthcare supply chain.

At each Summit you’ll have an opportunity to engage the healthcare leaders Chuck has chosen to participate on the Thought Leadership Panel to assist you in improving your organization from the wisdom of these leaders. We’ll begin announcing the panelists next week but we believe this Fall’s panelists will prove to be very engaging and provocative for all parties involved. Chuck’s engaging style always makes these sessions something special.

Since we began discussing the IDN Summit with Chuck there is one thing he’s been eager to do and that is he wanted to get into a room with a number of suppliers who are selling into health systems and share his thoughts on selling. As many of you know Chuck is really the Master Salesman and this Fall he will be sharing his thoughts on successfully navigating the healthcare industry. We look forward to hearing Chuck’s insights this Fall.

Market Strategies Track: Survival Tips from a Master Salesman

Tuesday, September 21^st

Chuck Lauer, the legendary former publisher of Modern Healthcare magazine and a consultant to and director of many companies in the healthcare industry will share with vendor sales executives his insights on selling to the healthcare market.

Whether the client is a system or an individual hospital, selling in the industry takes intelligence, perseverance, intestinal fortitude, discipline, risk and creativity. Not everybody is cut out for this level of sales, and that means there are opportunities in healthcare for those with the tools and the aptitude to navigate these waters. Lauer believes that sales is a profession and a calling, requiring a special level of effort day in and day out. It takes special individuals who are probably going to face a “no” 90% of the time and still persist in their goal of selling a specific account. “These are the real warriors, and they bring success to every company they work for,” he says.

Lauer will detail strategies on how to approach system executives, make the presentation, close the deal and build a powerful and lasting relationship with the client.

Learning Objectives:

Learn the fundamentals that make a great salesperson.
Understand the specific needs of the health system marketplace.
Find out how to build relationships with your client partners.

If you’re a provider you still have time to participate in the second Healthcare Supply Chain Survey that is currently being conducted concerning the recently passed healthcare reform legislation. Click here to participate. Earlier this year, we issued our first report on the top areas of strategic importance. The anecdotes that respondents gave us revealed how many of them had the same challenges, underscoring again that need for a sense of community.

Serving Our Community

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:40:00 GMT

Like most organizations, IDN Summit and Expo has many goals. Of course, we want to put on the most informative and inspirational conferences possible. With your help, we are continually enhancing our Summit content, tailoring it ever more closely to fit your expressed needs.

But we also know that it’s not enough. With everything that is going on in healthcare today, the people we serve need more; more information, more insights, more opportunities to learn and share best practices and more data on which to base future decisions.

I can summarize those needs in one word—community. People who work in the healthcare supply chain often feel like they are in silos, isolated from the C-suite, clinical departments and even other aspects of their organizations’ supply chain. Without support from peers across the country, it is easy to believe you are “up against it,” that you are alone in facing the stiff challenges that today’s healthcare marketplace provides. We want to foster a greater sense that those who work in the healthcare supply chain share common challenges and opportunities. We seek to become a year-round resource for this community, a place where everyone can go to share ideas and information and to feel more connected.

The most visible manifestation of this new approach is our new website: www.idnsummit.com. We have redesigned the site to provide more options for interaction in our community. It has more regular features, including one called Inside the Supply Chain. There we’ll be providing research, analysis and links to important content. Soon we will update the site to include our Peer-to-Peer Research Reports and summaries of the discussions on those topics held during the Spring Summit in Orlando. We hope that you find this new site better fits your needs. And yes, your feedback is essential, so call us (859-523-5701) or email us to tell us what you think.

We are also putting together our second Healthcare Supply Chain Survey, to be administered in the summer. Twice a year, we will be asking executives who oversee aspects of the supply chain at integrated delivery networks and health systems what they think about key supply chain issues. Earlier this year, we issued our first report on the top areas of strategic importance. The anecdotes that respondents gave us revealed how many of them had the same challenges, underscoring again that need for a sense of community.

We’re also pulling together our fall agenda based on feedback from participants in Orlando. We so appreciate the comments we have received to date, and invite everyone who hasn’t replied to provide us with more. Please click here to take our survey. All of this information is crucial as we look to answer the need for community in the healthcare supply chain.

IDN Summit Launches New Site

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:51:00 GMT

IDN Summit has launched its new website with the goal of providing more options for the community to interact throughout the year and improve upon the experiences of each Summit.

We hope that you find this new site to be a great improvement from our previous site, and we hope that it will help you get more involved with the IDN Summit community.

Some parting thoughts from Orlando

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:13:00 GMT

After I return home following every IDN Summit, I always have many thoughts, thanks and tributes to share. I truly hope everyone who came to Orlando found it to be as interesting and inspiring as I did.

One thought: the Search for Supply Chain Excellence in Healthcare Awards program, as it always does, culminated in a single winner in Sisters of Mercy Health System, but after hearing the award nomination presentations by all five finalists, I realized we truly did have five winners.

Mercy’s supply chain arm, ROi, won the Summit of Excellence Award for its innovative project centered on custom packs for surgeries and other procedures. But we also honored with Peer Choice awards Huntsville (Ala.) Hospital, which replaced its aging inventory of more than 750 hospital beds through a partnership with a vendor instead of using a group purchasing organization contract; Johns Hopkins Health System, Baltimore, which adopted an electronic bidding system to increase competition and drive down supply costs; St. Anthony’s Medical Center, St. Louis, which adopted a holistic supply chain process that included a new panel to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of purchased products and services; and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which used its formerly independent catering operation as a test case for electronic procurement technology.

The systems involved in these projects are the best in class, their work a tribute to the spirit of excellence. We can only hope that next year’s awards nominations come close to this level of innovation.

I have special thanks for all of the speakers and panelists, who made the Spring Summit one to remember. I hope everyone enjoyed the fruits of the new partnership with Disney Institute. We hope to recreate that magic in the future.

We’ve had a lot of interest in the video of the healthcare reform panel and I’d like to salute the participants on this panel. Mark McKenna, former president and CEO of Novation, moderated a panel that included Rand Ballard, chairman of the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association and senior executive vice president and COO of MedAssets; Frank Cirillo, senior VP and chief restructuring officer of NYC Health & Hospitals Corp.; and Vance Moore, president and CEO of ROi. They provided attendees with a thoughtful and interesting dialogue on how reform will impact the supply chain. To watch the session, click here.

McKenna filled in for Chuck Lauer, our esteemed colleague who has been out of action after surgery earlier this spring. We look forward to Chuck being back in the flow at our Fall 2010 IDN Summit and Expo.

And continuing that thought, the theme this fall will be ‘Healthcare at a Crossroads’. As the health reform regulations start to flow from Washington, and other changes impact the delivery of healthcare, there will be plenty to talk about when we gather Sept. 21-Sept. 23 at the Arizona Grand Resort in Phoenix. We will have a tentative agenda to share with you in the coming weeks.

Finally, to all 589 attendees in Orlando (20% increase from 2009 Spring Summit), our profound thanks for coming and for being so willing to share your thoughts at the Peer-to-Peer Exchanges. If you haven’t done so already, we would also like your parting thoughts. Please click here for the survey information we sent out last week. Getting input from participants on our events is vitally important to us and helps inform and inspire us to do even better next time.

A Stellar Field

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:12:00 GMT

I want to thank all those healthcare executives who took the time to read through and vote on the dozen submissions we received for this year’s Search for Supply Chain Excellence in Healthcare Awards. Like you, we were quite impressed by the variety and quality of the nominated projects. There may be a long way to go to achieve the kind of cost savings and quality improvement that is possible in the supply chain arena, but these nominations show that some organizations have a strong head start on that journey.

Similarly, the five finalists you supported are truly indicative of the range of innovation going on across the country. I hope that healthcare policy experts—especially those looking at how to control costs—read these submissions and understand that forward-looking supply chain departments hold the promise of reducing costs and improving quality of care. I think this is a missed opportunity in the reform proposals I have seen.

If those folks did read these submissions, here is what they would find:

Huntsville Hospital saved millions with a vendor partnership to replace aging medical beds. The novel deal also involves other benefits, including help with a patient fall reduction campaign. View full submission.

Johns Hopkins uses electronic bidding on all supply contracts to overcome inertia in contracting. Like many large organizations, the staff there fell into the rut of simply renegotiating contracts with the same vendors, not having the weeks of effort needed to the contracting departments. After a test, Johns Hopkins now uses e-bidding for much of its supply spend. This is a good system for everyone, as vendors can bid without time-consuming site visits and find out if they got the job in a matter of hours. View full submission.

St. Anthony’s Medical Center moved from a materials management mindset to a true supply chain approach. Its account of that transformation should be required reading for any organization mired in the old ways of doing business. View full submission.

ROi, the Sisters of Mercy Health System’s supply chain arm, built a custom procedure tray manufacturing facility from scratch. It decided to go the whole way, becoming an FDA-approved facility. With the use of procedure packs rising exponentially, the Sisters of Mercy project seems particularly prescient. View full submission.

Finally, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center tested e-sourcing in its catering operation, saving 400% on costs. It sees this cutting-edge initiative as a model for future contracting. View full submission.

Attendees at the Spring IDN Summit and Expo in Orlando next month will be able to hear presentations from the finalists prior to voting for the The Search for Supply Chain Excellence in Healthcare Awards. We think it will be an inspiring time for anyone looking for models for improving their supply chain operations.

We look forward to that, and to seeing everyone there.

Speaking of Excellence

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:04:00 GMT

One of the things that’s exciting about running a show like IDN Summit and Expo is getting to interact with the many dynamic people in the healthcare industry in general—and, of course, the supply chain arena in particular. Having come from outside the industry not all that long ago, it is a daily revelation to find so many committed individuals who have chosen healthcare not because it is a business but because it is a calling.

With less than two months until the spring Summit in Orlando, we are busy finalizing our roster of top-notch speakers, and I can tell you it is already shaping up as impressive a group as we have had. My hat is once again off to the Advisory Board who provided much needed guidance in speaker selection and program development.

Here are the first three examples to illustrate that point. I'll be updating a summary of each session education leaders over the next few months so check back for updates:

Desi Kotis, the pharmacy director at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, will be on hand to present on medicine reconciliation. In 2006, Northwestern received a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to address this pivotal patient safety issue. Kotis has led a multidisciplinary team, supported by hospital leadership, which created the Medications at Transitions and Clinical Handoffs initiative to weave medication reconciliation into all points of patient care.

Dan Maloy, the founder of the Maloy Group, will present on “Benchmarking Sales Channel Strategies,” and will moderate our Peer-to-Peer Exchange on physician preference items. Dan will provide information for organizations to benchmark their sales strategies against other companies across the healthcare industry, and is based on the results of a landmark research study of national and corporate account channel strategies. Dan’s experience spans the supplier and distributor sides of healthcare. He has held numerous leadership positions in marketing, sales and business development, and throughout his career he has consistently delivered results for large organizations such as Johnson & Johnson Medical, McKesson Medical-Surgical and Owens & Minor. Dan has also served in leadership roles on several key industry boards and is an adjunct faculty member in the Marketing, Industrial Distribution and Economics Department at the University of Alabama Birmingham.

Also featured in the new Market Intelligence Track, is Mike Langlois, who currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Daudlin, DeBeaupre and Company and most of you know from running Ascension Health’s supply chain for many years. Mike will lead you through the analysis of the results from the recent research we conducted of healthcare supply chain leaders. Mike will enhance this session by discussing other research he's compiled from additional sources. Mike has an enormous breadth of knowledge and his insights will assist all of us in a deeper understanding of the healthcare supply chain.

I wanted to take this opportunity to remind readers that the initial round of voting for the 2010 Search for Supply Chain Excellence in Healthcare Awards will end this Sunday, Feb. 28. Senior executives of healthcare provider organizations are eligible to vote.

The top five vote-getting submissions will be announced March 8, and the finalists will be invited to make presentations at the Spring IDN Summit and Expo. Final voting for the awards will occur during a general session at the summit. At that time, a single Summit of Excellence Award Winner will be chosen, along with four Peer Choice Award honorees.

This is the only independent awards program for supply chain excellence, so if you haven't already, please make sure you cast your vote!

Some Magic Coming in Orlando

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:11:00 GMT

With our agenda set, the Spring IDN Summit and Expo in Orlando is ready to rock and roll April 20-22. We think that you will find we have quite a show in store for you.

When my company took over this event a little more than a year and a half ago, we had a goal of building on what was already a unique conference. The reverse expo, a great idea in concept and execution, was already in place. We wanted to add to that a different kind of program. There are a lot of meetings in the supply chain space, but we believed that by focusing on innovative educational content and interactivity, we could spark some magic. Each Summit and Expo could be bigger than the sum of its parts, giving attendees the information and inspiration they need to help their organizations deliver on the promise of higher-quality, more cost-efficient care.

We continue to build on that concept. For Orlando, we have created a new Market Intelligence Track, where sessions will focus on a range of cutting-edge research on aspects of the healthcare supply chain. In these sessions we’ll work on analyzing key research impacting the healthcare supply chain. As we move forward, we’d like for each new IDN Summit and Expo to feature the results of our latest research as well as other market research.

I mentioned interactivity. We introduced a Peer-to-Peer Exchange (P2P) at last fall’s Summit and we’ll continue this concept with the Peer-to-Peer Exchange Breakfasts allowing attendees to review in-depth four key challenges in supply chain management and through moderated dialogues arrive at some new ideas and solutions to those challenges. At the spring event, the topics will be physician preference items, communicating with leadership, vendor credentialing and data standardization.

In Orlando, we’re going to introduce attendees to the concept of Positive Deviance (PD). For those who don’t know exactly what PD is all about, we’ll discuss the adaptation of this concept to healthcare, where it is being used with great success to solve a range of seemingly intractable problems, such as healthcare-acquired infections. The approach enables organizations to mine the uncommon, but successful habits of its best people and spread those habits across the enterprise.

We’re also going to provide attendees with the benefits of our partnership with Disney Institute. Talk about magic: Institute experts will be on hand to explain the Disney Difference in Value Chain Management. They will discuss how integrating four components—planning, processes, partnering and performance—can help healthcare organizations manage resources, streamline processes and reduce waste to add money to the bottom line without raising prices or passing costs on to customers.

We also have worked to make our meetings timely, and so, with health reform still a possibility, we have put together a high-impact panel discussion on reform and future trends led by Chuck Lauer, healthcare visionary and former publisher of Modern Healthcare magazine. The panel includes John Hillenmeyer, CEO, Orlando Health; Michael Israel, CEO, Westchester Medical Center; Ed Lovern, Executive Vice President of Piedmont Healthcare; and Joseph Swedish, CEO, Trinity Health.

We believe this meeting is your meeting so let us know what you think of the agenda, and if you would like to participate for the Fall IDN Summit contact Lisa Ponssa, and she’ll discuss the opportunities with you.

Rest assured, we will continue to build on our commitment to making the IDN Summit and Expo a unique event in the annual healthcare supply chain conference landscape.

A New Outlook

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:11:00 GMT

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. 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.