In this episode, guest host Scott Adams has a conversation about the new reimbursement schedule from Medicare known as PAMA.

Scott first talks with Mark Zacur, VP & General Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific where they talk about possible impacts on our healthcare system and patients.

Then Scott talks to Jim Poggi from Tested Insights on how this will impact the POL, or Physician Office Labs.

Note from Mark Zacur: "Views expressed through this podcast are my own and do not represent the opinions of any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated with”

On this episode we talk to Christine Torres, System Vice President, Supply Chain and Biomedical Engineering, Main Line Health in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Chris Torres began her healthcare career as a high-schooler, working in a research lab in a Philadelphia hospital. While still in college, she became certified as a surgical technician and scrubbed in the OR evenings and nights.

After graduation, she joined The Wistar Institute, an independent biomedical research firm in Philadelphia, but soon returned to the clinical setting, scrubbing in the OR, primarily for orthopedics and neuro procedures. She assumed additional responsibilities in SPD, logistics and materials management before taking a hiatus from healthcare in 2000, when she joined IKON (now Ricoh), to oversee facilities management in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

She returned to Main Line Health in November 2002. As the system vice president of supply chain management and biomedical engineering, Torres oversees more than 250 employees in biomedical engineering, contracting, inventory control and logistics. The supply chain management team is responsible for approximately $300 million in spend. The program encompasses an in-house biomedical equipment management program, strategic sourcing, supply chain management technology and data analytics, clinical resource management aligned with clinician engagement, and systemized logistics management.

On this episode we talk with Steve Kiewiet, Vice president, supply chain operations and interim co-chief supply chain officer with BJC HealthCare.

This episode is sponsored by Vantage Point Logistics.  Learn more at www.VantagePointLogistics.com

Steve started his healthcare career in high school, when he served as a member of the volunteer ambulance crew in his hometown. He spent 10 years as a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy, after which he worked as a paramedic while finishing his college education. After college, he was a pharmaceutical sales rep before moving to distribution, logistics and operations with a large national distributor serving the physician office market. He then moved into a business development role with a company that manufactures automated external defibrillators. After that, he joined Cardinal Health, where he had three different roles in Lean Six Sigma process improvement, product/category management and distribution operations. He landed in his current role at BJC HealthCare in December 2012.

His primary responsibility at BJC is supply chain operations, distribution/logistics, inventory planning/management along with centralized purchasing and the corporate travel/purchasing card program management. His team consists of the supply chain professionals working in BJC’s 15 hospitals, who partner everyday with the clinical and hospital operations leaders to ensure they have the supplies that are needed to support their mission in the delivery of care. Kiewiet recently assumed a co-leadership role with a peer as the chief supply chain officer for BJC HealthCare. Together they lead an organization of over 300 people, including sourcing, utilization management, analytics and process improvement professionals.

In this episode we talk to Tim Nedley, Vice President, Materials Management for UPMC in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He has overall responsibility for distribution, logistics, materials management, transportation, clinical engineering, print, freight management and fleet management.

Nedley specializes in change management, operational enhancements and other projects that have a positive impact to an organization’s bottom line. He’s honed and applied best practices over 28 years of leadership experience at UPS, Owens & Minor and UPMC. Since starting at UPMC, Nedley and his team have increased warehouse and materials management productivity in excess of 30% and are on track to drive out $14M in inbound freight spend over the next 5 years.

Nedley earned a BS in Human Resources from Geneva College.

In this episode we talk to Randy Hayas, the Chief Supply Chain Officer at Orlando Health an eight-hospital integrated health care delivery network in Orlando, Florida with more than $2.7Billion in Net patient Revenue.  Mr. Hayas joined the organization in 2007 and has over 30 years’ experience in supply chain, healthcare administration and consulting ranging from small community hospitals to large academic medical centers and integrated delivery networks. 

Mr. Hayas has a Bachelor in Business Administration degree majoring in Finance and Economics and is a Certified Materials & Resource Professional through the American Hospital Association.  In addition, Mr. Hayas is a Board Member of IDignity, Inc., a non-profit organization helping the disadvantaged in Central Florida through the complex steps of getting personal identification.

In this episode we talk to Mark Cartwright, Senior Director of Supplier Diversity for Vizient; the nation’s largest member-owned health care services company. Vizient provides insight in the critical areas of clinical, operational and supply chain performance. Following a recent acquisition, Vizient now manages in excess of $100 billion in annual contractual spend. Mark is often sought out for his insight on supplier diversity processes, practices, and strategic importance.

Immediately prior to Vizient, Mark was appointed by then Governor Robert McDonnell to the newly created role of Director of Supplier Diversity for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Reporting directly to the Governor, Mark was charged with providing leadership and direction to over 150 state agencies in an effort to increase spending with small and diverse businesses. Mark was able to Increase spending with minority-owned businesses by establishing an unprecedented level of collaboration and understanding between state agencies, buyers, suppliers, contractors and other stakeholders.

Immediately prior to the Governor’s Office, Mark created and grew the supplier diversity program at his alma mater, Virginia Tech. Despite Virginia Tech’s location in the least racially diverse area in the Commonwealth, he was able to grow the program well beyond expectations.

Prior to his entry into the supplier diversity arena, Mark enjoyed over fifteen successful years in retail, commercial, and direct banking industries in various management roles. Most recently, Mark served as Manager of Customer Care and Back Office Servicing at GMAC Bank, from its startup through the acquisition of over $15 billion in assets.

He holds an MBA degree with a Finance concentration from Virginia Tech, as well as a BS degree in Management. He is certified by the Institute for Supply Management as a Certified Professional in Supply Management and was among the first to achieve the Certified Professional in Supplier Diversity designation.

In this episode we visit with Eric O'Daffer who is a Research Vice President in the Gartner Healthcare Supply Chain group.

Mr. O'Daffer's focus is on the end-to-end healthcare value chain, starting at the point of patient care looking back. He focuses most of his time with providers and how they best manage all the components of supply chain.  This involves both their internal processes as well as best practices for partnering with their trading partners to optimize the clinical effectiveness of products and provide the best total cost to serve possible.   

Mr. O'Daffer's main focus is helping pull all this together in healthcare contextualizing best practices from other industries where applicable. 

In this episode we talk to Matt Rowan. As President and CEO of HIDA since 2000, Mr. Rowan has positioned HIDA as the leading advocate for the medical products distribution industry before Congress and Federal agencies. He has been responsible for the development of new member services in areas such as market intelligence, data analytics and structured networking.

Mr. Rowan also serves as Vice Chairman of the HIDA Educational Foundation (HEF) Board of Directors, which represents leading manufacturers of medical products.

He is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in Marketing and minor in Economics. Mr. Rowan resides in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and daughter.