Managing in uncertain times

Radical change, often referred to as a paradigm shift, will occur in the wake of the United States healthcare reform effort currently underway. It will be value-based, community-oriented and patient- and family-centered. These changes will pose great challenges for materiel management. The future will call for integrated healthcare delivery networks that will see hospitals lose their preeminence as providers and, subsequently, needed revenues. Strategies such as implementation of total quality management, and vendor and community partnering will become more pronounced. Materiel managers will see their role change to one of information gathering and disseminating. All healthcare managers will need new skills to help shape the future of healthcare delivery, including the ability to challenge assumptions, understand that there are alternative realities, anticipate business trends, and create and implement a vision of the future of their organization.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Biomedical equipment information management for the next generation

Recent restructuring of the quality assurance standards of the JCAHO and the benefits to be gained from assurance indicators are requiring clinical engineering support groups to manage their equipment inventories with greater precision. Technological enhancements in the database industry have provided these groups with a mechanism with which they can manage. Assessments of equipment reliability, departmental management, and quality assurance give supervisory staff an important tool for feedback.