Best Practices for Improving Lab Supply Chain Strategies

Approximately 70% of medical decisions are based on clinical lab results, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.¹ Yet, clinical labs have long been the unsung heroes of the healthcare ecosystem even as they have used their medical lab supplies to provide timely and accurate information needed for diagnosing disease or vital public health data.

“This began to change during COVID, which suddenly and urgently gave prominence to healthcare providers’ reliance on lab,” says Kevin Dunwoody, Medline vice president of laboratory national field sales. He adds that the pandemic also revealed a necessity to align lab, which accounts for roughly 6% of med-surg supply spend,² with a health system’s overall supply chain strategy.

When done right, this alignment enables hospitals and health systems to operate more efficiently and effectively—preventing delays in patient care, minimizing lost revenue and removing extra burdens and stress placed on staff.

As healthcare continues to change and evolve, Dunwoody provides four tips for supply chain leaders as they build and manage their strategies for medical lab supplies:

1

Sync lab with the rest of the hospital supply chain

Like other healthcare settings, clinical labs have well-defined processes and protocols in place, and lab team members know exactly what supplies they need to have readily available for the work they do.

Even when accounting for certain hazardous or temperature-controlled product storage solutions to address specific lab product attributes, there is not much justification for running a clinical lab supply chain that is not in sync with the rest of the supply chain. Lab can be aligned with any other product purchased in volume—from office supplies to MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) and IT.

At minimum, hospitals and health systems should:

• Effectively standardize their product list to every degree possible.
• Rationalize and consolidate their SKU list to decrease variability.
• Deliver the right mix and quantity of products to match their demand profile and available storage.
• Make shipments as full and infrequent as possible to minimize workflow disruption.

2

Have a plan to address potential backorders of medical lab supplies

Manufacturer requirements specify which brand of consumables, reagents, chemicals, etc., should be used with their products and instrumentation—without demonstrating significant improvements to outcomes. This makes it somewhat challenging for labs to realize efficiencies, particularly across service lines.

It’s even more difficult when labs face a national backorder issue. While a robust auto-substitution program for med-surg commodities and consumables can be put in place to help end users navigate through supply chain issues and backorders, labs often need to validate and update certain SOPs when looking at a new item.

For this reason, it is essential that health systems and their distributors work together to plan and prepare for possible lab supply chain disruptions. This plan should rely on upstream data and proactive communication with lab buyers and end users so that lab professionals can focus on what they do best—provide patient care.

It is essential that health systems and their distributors work together to plan and prepare for possible lab supply chain disruptions.

Kevin Dunwoody

Medline Vice President of Laboratory National Field Sales

3

Optimize workflow to compensate for space constraints

Space constraints also are challenging in the lab, which is typically teeming with people who are moving products and samples in and out all day, every day, without any cohesive strategy.

Lab leaders are continuously looking to more effectively manage consumption of lab supplies in their given space by consolidating and storing products used for various lab work—chemistry, biology, pathology, etc.—without negatively impacting workflow or causing the mishandling of samples coming in and going out.

Labs should re-engineer lab testing space in a way that optimizes workflow, improves processes and ultimately leads to cost savings. A good way to tackle this is to assemble a team of lab professionals and other key stakeholders to identify what needs to be addressed. Then you can create an action plan.

It’s also worth consulting with a distributor or business partner, such as Medline, who offers expertise in healthcare supply chain optimization, is committed to solving larger supply chain challenges and can provide insights into how other clinical labs or healthcare systems have overcome similar challenges.

4

Watch what’s on the horizon for clinical labs

Dunwoody recommends keeping an eye on what lies ahead for lab in the next several years:

• Technology advancements and further investments in automation will have a significant impact on the future landscape of clinical labs, particularly as staffing shortages ensue and demand for testing increases on pace with an aging population. All of this is resulting in time management issues for lab professionals.
• In pursuing new strategies and processes, hospitals and health systems must make it a priority to raise awareness and invest in the ongoing education of lab professionals. It’s crucial not to lose sight of the essential role lab professionals play in lab operations—most importantly, providing a service that leads to high-quality care and positive outcomes.
• Automation and new advanced testing platforms will enable labs to become more efficient and streamline a lot of their processes, and at the same time, lead to earlier detection of disease and better care of the patient population. While customers are asking about AI solutions to help identify and remove non-value-added activities in the lab, the more interesting AI solutions in this setting work with camera-based inputs and electronic IDs in storage areas. Not unlike the rest of the healthcare industry, concerns about patient privacy and security are curbing any advancement of AI in lab supply chain at this time.
• Real estate in health systems and hospitals is becoming too valuable for non-revenue generating, non-value added activities. Every inch of a hospital or health system is being used to provide better service to patients, improve patient outcomes and operate more effectively and efficiently. More health systems are establishing multi-use consolidated service centers designed to provide support operations and functions—something the industry can expect to see more of in five to 10 years.

Key takeaway

Clinical labs historically have been the unsung heroes in healthcare. Yet they provide information needed for patient diagnosis and treatment. It’s vital to have an effective, efficient strategy for medical lab supplies. Lab leaders can do this by syncing lab with the rest of the hospital supply chain, having a plan to address potential backorders, partnering with your medical supplier to optimize workflow to compensate for space constraints and watching what’s on the horizon for clinical labs.