In late 2022, Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health merged to form Charlotte, N.C.-based Advocate Health. Since then, the 67-hospital system has had to shape its supply chain road map.
"With the recent merger, we have two different supply chain departments, two different procurement departments and two different ERPs," Conrad Emmerich, Advocate's senior vice president and chief procurement officer, told the Association of National Account Executives. "We're meshing them together and trying to build one really robust and powerful supply chain team."
Mr. Emmerich shared his department's strategies with the ANAE in late 2023. Here are three things to know:
1. The health system has a regional supply chain operations leader in the Midwest and Southeast, and each is responsible for logistics. There is also a sourcing leader for all purchase services, pharmaceuticals and capital. Procurement and optimization departments have respective leaders, and there is another leader who oversees new products and recalls.
2. Advocate renamed its regional group purchasing organization; it is now called the Advocate Health Supply Chain Alliance. The GPO is working to standardize and reduce its number of vendors through "getting a lot of contracts to be coterminous with one another," Mr. Emmerich said.
3. Finalizing its distribution strategy was not a "day one" priority for Advocate, he said, adding that the supply chain leaders are working to find the best model for each region and market.