Managing care in the alt-site — 3 thoughts from McKesson's Jody Dobson

As value-based care continues to drive patients towards alternative services sites, healthcare must prepare itself to look outside the four walls of a hospital and consider expansion.

Managing the complexity of the non-acute care continuum was the main topic of discussion during an April 11 panel at the Becker's Hospital Review 9th Annual Meeting, April 11 to April 14 in Chicago. McKesson Medical-Surgical Vice President of Business Development Jody Dobson shared several thoughts on supply chain and alternative sites of care.

Here are three thoughts she had.

Editor's note: Quotes have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

1. "The line between medicine and health is blurring, as these technologies and new treatments emerge they're not going to be in the hospital, they're going to be outside of the hospital walls and in the alt-site.… We already have a lot of technology emerging that's along that same concept of following that patient as they go along their outside lives or doing additional diagnostic[s] in the offsite. Healthcare Advisory Board said 95 percent of patient visits happen outside the hospital. Healthcare is rapidly changing and we just want to get some ideas around how the technology is changing, and from a supply chain perspective.... When you look at the alt-site, it might be a relatively small amount of spending but it's highly complex, and as more modalities emerge in the offsite, [we're seeing] they're all connected to something."

2. "We know about value-based care and people say to me, 'hey, what do supplies have to do with value-based care?' I say, 'talk to a surgery center that didn't get some type of custom tray and had to reschedule a surgery [or] talk to someone who got a great deal on something and it ends up breaking.' It goes way beyond logistics when you think of the alt-site supply chain. You have to have control of the quality of those products or there is tremendous risk involved in that.… The patient experience is value-based care and how you use supplies to treat that patient is very relevant and very important."

3. "There is tremendous change in the alt-site. It's changing even faster and there are resources and experts out there that can help you. Supply chain managers don't need to be the experts in everything. My favorite saying is information is free. Talk to people who are experts and they'll give you free information.… There are things in the alt-site you can measure, and if you have a goal for savings you can get there by measuring things that aren't being measured today."

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