Healthcare providers need to continually optimize revenue generation. The supply chain has a significant impact on revenue. After all, medical supplies now make up a fifth of a provider’s expenses.
The correlation between supply chain optimization and revenue means it's more important than ever to cut fat around these costs. Most of a hospital’s supply chain issues are a result of inefficiencies, manual processes, and inventory disorganization during manufacturing, distribution, storage, and delivery.
Manual processes, paper-based systems, and disparate control systems that cause inventory shortages and create unnecessary expenses
A supply chain management platform that integrates demand forecasting, inventory control, and digitized order entry
Accurate demand forecasting, inventory transparency, consistent price controls, and supply consistency across departments
There are a variety of requirements to solve this use case. All of them point back towards the business goals of different personas across hospitals, clinics, and provider referral networks. At the highest level, healthcare supply chain management platforms need to:
Additionally, we need to configure two basic permission sets:
Let's address how we solve each of these requirements.
First of all, we configure the account and contact objects in order to streamline how a provider can manage relationships across all their vendors. Managing relationships falls into 2 categories:
For the supply chain use case, we set up Salesforce inbox to monitor and track activity within healthcare organizations. This enables different departments, such as purchasing, clinical, and administration, to easily keep track of all their communications and activities with vendors. With the help of cross-object reporting, we further empower our clients to analyze and interpret data across various metrics and activities.
Furthermore, within the account object, we establish hierarchies to ensure efficient categorization of vendors. This categorization is done under their respective group purchasing organization (GPO) or integrated delivery network (IDN). By implementing these hierarchies, we streamline the process and enhance productivity in managing vendor relationships.
First of all, we configure products and price books to understand the cost across vendors for their supplies. This means that we can apply pricing updates in Salesforce to provide a single source of truth of agreed upon pricing from vendors for contracts.
With pricing established, we manage contract lifecycle with an add-on from Form Titan. This supports direct vendor, IDN, and GPO contract negotiations and tracking, including:
Throughout the contract lifecycle, we track requests from initiation to approval (or denial) by leveraging case management. With the right configuration, this includes support for committee tracking with votes and notes to adhere to compliance requirements for new equipment requests. Additionally, we can generate documentation for each supply requests for compliance.
To streamline and optimize the ordering process, our team has developed a robust and efficient portal leveraging the power of Salesforce Experience Cloud. This innovative portal serves as a centralized platform, empowering clinical teams to seamlessly request essential equipment from a supply chain team.
With its cutting-edge mobile-friendly and user-friendly design, these portals provide a consistent and measurable way for clinicians to effortlessly submit equipment requests, ensuring a smooth and efficient workflow throughout the entire process.
AI-driven analysis accurately forecasts demand
Centralized price books organize cost across vendors
Effortlessly submit equipment requests through mobile-friendly portals