Managing the Complex Healthcare Supply Chain with Technology

Supply chain management is a key function within healthcare organizations. Locations leveraging different supplier distribution centers make it difficult to streamline the supply chain and adjust to potential supply chain volatility. 

Direct Supply® DSSI™ provided supply chain technology to help healthcare organizations navigate this process while using the DSSI platform. Read below to learn how the Direct Supply DSSI team transformed food order guide management for their customers. 

Problems in Healthcare Supply Chain Management: Order Guides

The effective management of food order guides across regions and supplier distribution centers is a complex and time-consuming process, especially with the nuances of the healthcare supply chain. Product availability differs between distribution centers. Product SKUs vary and often change between distribution centers. 

In addition to this complexity, food is often the largest area of speed for healthcare organizations. Here is the traditional process for multi-region healthcare organizations to manage their food order guides:

1. Manually create separate order guides for each distribution center in their food procurement process. In some cases, healthcare. organizations worked with dozens of distribution centers.
2. Individually monitor each order guide, looking out for discontinued products.
3. Identify new or substitute products they need added to one or more order guides.
4. Find available product options at each individual distribution center that fit their product need.
5. Manually update each order guide with the specific product(s) needed. 
6. Repeat for all applicable product categories.

Navigating Supply Chain Challenges in Healthcare with Direct Supply DSSI

The Direct Supply DSSI team heard of the struggles senior care providers were facing during their food order guide management process. In order to simplify the process and be at the forefront of supply chain trends, Direct Supply DSSI built the cutting edge, patented OGM® 3 platform. The benefits of this advanced technology include:

1. Allowing healthcare organizations to easily manage their food order guides across multiple distribution centers
2. Reducing manual work and saving time in the food order guide manage process
3. Providing real-time supply chain visibility into product availability and pricing, helping teams respond to supply chain disruptions

Time Saving Results in Healthcare Supply Chain Management

The OGM 3 platform has quickly become the industry leading order guide management tool and a competitive advantage in healthcare supply chain management. Since its release in 2018, OGM 3 has reduced the amount of time spent on a variety of order guide management tasks. Some examples of this healthcare innovation in action include:

• 98.7% time reduction in menu creation 
• 99.6% time reduction in item additions
• 99.7% time reduction in discontinued product substitutions 

These incredible time savings give healthcare procurement professionals more time to focus on other important tasks that directly support patients and residents amidst labor shortages and other supply chain issues