Supply chain leaders from five health systems connected with Becker’s to answer the question: How is your health system using AI to enhance supply chain efficiency and optimization?
James Francis. Chair of Supply Chain Management at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.): At Mayo Clinic, we are making foundational investments in AI to improve supply chain delivery and bring new value to the practice. By integrating AI and our digital supply chain ecosystem, the organization is solving a wide range of business challenges. We are leveraging various AI technologies, including gen AI, [autonomous mobile robots] and in-house developed machine-learning models. We’re also exploring and establishing new AI-related partnerships.
Gen AI tools like Microsoft Copilot allow us to expedite daily functions, find quick answers and supplement software engineering. AMRs allow us to decrease physical burden on staff and quickly deploy delivery resources. We are additionally using internally built models and external software partnerships to solve some of our most complex challenges, including supply disruptions, expense predictions and predictive supply delivery.
George Godfrey. Chief Supply Chain Officer at Baptist Health South Florida (Coral Gables): Baptist Health South Florida has been utilizing AI to further enhance supply chain efficiency and optimization in four key areas: demand management, payment management, back orders and contracts/sourcing. AI helps review and adjust [periodic automatic replenishment levels] based upon demand trends, ensuring proper inventory levels across thousands of storage locations and helping minimize the risk of stockouts or overstocking by forecasting inventory needs. For payment management, AI diagnoses the root cause of invoice match exceptions and automates the initiation of actions to resolve. This has reduced overpayments, resolution times and non-value-added tasks. AI also helps prioritize back orders by identifying those critical to patient care, such as items required for surgeries. For these high-priority back orders, AI immediately alerts suppliers and internal teams to expedite shipments or find substitutes, reducing sourcing time and avoiding distractions caused by non-essential backorders.
Most recently, the Baptist Health team has pursued a new use case for AI in the contracts and sourcing process by suggesting improved terms and conditions. This not only speeds up and standardizes contract management but also ensures that contracts consistently protect the organization from potential risks. As we continue to explore AI’s capabilities, we foresee many additional use cases that will further enhance operations.
Josh Grulke. System Director of Supply Chain Operations at Allina Health (Minneapolis): AI is a function of when, not if. To that end, Allina Health is actively determining our internal AI approach for supply procurement and management as well as implementing many AI technologies across our supply chain. This includes using optical character recognition (OCR) for invoice processing and employing machine learning to help requestors identify the correct items to procure.
Additionally, Allina is collaborating with expert suppliers to advance our AI and automation capabilities to support business continuity, contract optimization, sourcing and supplier selection, and creation, maintenance, and optimization of surgical procedure cards (cards that list supply needs within surgical areas).
Tom Harvieux. Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer for BJC Health System (St. Louis): We are in the early stages of our AI journey but see great potential in this innovative technology. Supply chain is following our organization’s overarching guidance and participating in AI oversight governance rather than independently assessing the myriad solutions that are currently in the market. Our approach is to find a specific use case for AI and conduct pilots to prove a hypothesis on value. An example of this would be leveraging embedded AI in our data warehouse systems to run all contracts against our “gold standard” templates and playbooks to identify any themes in deviation from these standards. This information will help measure process compliance, team coaching and the need to adjust processes. Utilizing AI to reduce recurring manual tasks and improve adherence to business controls has tremendous promise.
Doug Pytlinski. Senior Vice President of Supply Chain for AdventHealth (Altamonte Springs, Fla.): AdventHealth is making significant strides to enhance its supply chain efficiency and optimization through the strategic implementation of an AI-powered platform. The work is focused around visibility and intelligence decision-making, leading to proactive action supported by AI. This advanced platform provides real-time visibility and transparency into the supply chain, creating a centralized operation supported by a cutting-edge, cloud-based infrastructure.
The focus of the program is to serve all our locations across the country by improving decision intelligence and enhancing service to providers and patients. Following a “crawl-walk-run” approach for implementation, we will be able to bring AI into our work at a pace that allows for all to learn and maximize its capabilities. The program helps determine if facilities are receiving, putting away and delivering products in the most efficient manner, stocking the right products in the right quantities at the right time, and optimizing the placement of products within each facility and our Consolidated Service Center. This proactive approach allows AdventHealth to look further upstream in its supply chain, improving resiliency and accelerating decision-making. By transforming complex data into actionable insights, AdventHealth can operate with greater efficiency and confidence, ultimately enhancing the patient care experience. This strategic initiative not only strengthens the supply chain but also ensures that AdventHealth remains at the forefront of innovation, delivering exceptional care to patients and supporting the needs of healthcare providers.
