Mike Schiller
Are you ready for AHRMM?
August 12, 2024
by Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief
The AHRMM annual conference and exhibition is taking place September 22-25, in Columbus, Ohio. In preparation for the big event, HealthCare Business News sat down with Mike Schiller, executive director of the AHRMM, to find out what hospital supply chain stakeholders can expect at the event.
HCB News: Who or what inspired you to follow a career in health care?
Mike Schiller: To be honest, health care was not my initial career path. Growing up in the Apollo era I dreamt of becoming an astronaut. When I found out that 20/20 vision was a requirement, let’s just say my goals shifted towards a career at NASA or in the field of astronomy. Life happens, and I found myself working at a pharmaceutical distribution center which was the starting point of my health care, and more importantly, my supply chain career.
HCB News: Can you tell us about your history with the AHRMM and why you first joined?
MS: After my tenure at Lederle Labs, I worked at Baxter before leaving to work at a prominent children’s hospital. Understanding the power of education and networking, I joined AHRMM at this time and began attending their annual conferences, education sessions and our local chapter meetings. I had the opportunity to present with and learn from my peers, which was a cornerstone of my career development and advancement.
HCB News: What did that journey look like, from joining AHRMM to taking on your current leadership role?
MS: I started my 17-year tenure at the children’s hospital in the surgical services department. Here I gained valuable clinical perspectives on product use and utilization that were incorporated into supplier contracts and relationships, and supply chain management practices implemented within a procedural setting. From there I took a job in our IT department where I had the opportunity to project manage our ERP conversion, moving our separate MMIS and Financial platforms into a single ERP platform. Once implemented, I moved into the system administrator role and with that, had the opportunity to learn every aspect and module within our single platform ERP. This end-to-end knowledge provided me a big picture understanding of the functionality available to us as an organization. I moved from IT to Support Services where I began to take on more aspects of the organizations supply chain operations. Our ERP provided a centralized supply chain management platform allowing us to decentralize and redeploy staff into new positions and key departments across the organization. By 2007 our acute care supply chain was touchless. I eventually closed out my career moving from operations to our new hospital planning and construction team – it was an amazing project and a true capstone career experience!
Upon completion of the new hospital, I worked briefly for a capital equipment startup company and then AHRMM, where I worked as the Senior Director of Supply Chain for almost 10 years. At this time, AHRMM had just completed the development of its Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Movement and wanted to bring on staff a supply chain professional to work with colleagues and peers across the health care field to raise awareness to, and adoption of CQO and Clinical Integrated Supply Chain methodologies. Which leads us to today, where I have the absolute honor and privilege to lead the association for health care supply chain professionals, the organization that gave so much to me over the years - AHRMM is a part of the fabric of my career.
HCB News: What are some of the biggest initiatives that AHRMM is currently focusing on?
MS: We are well underway in our Reimagining AHRMM 1.0 campaign (note 1.0 implies there will be a 2.0). This is not a one-year initiative or program, but a new direction that AHRMM is taking. It starts with the new banner flying over the AHRMM Headquarters – Transformational Excellence. Transformational excellence involves pursuing excellence as we embrace new ways to work, collaborate and elevate today’s supply chain professionals who lead our health care supply chains.
There are six key initiatives we are focusing on this year – listed in no particular order:
• A renewed focus on the development of educational content that meets our member’s needs where they are now and, their envisioned career pathways.
• Intentional alignment with our Affiliated Chapters.
• Understanding and thoughtfully advancing AI adoption across the health care supply chain.
• Purposeful engagement with health care and supply chain executive leadership.
• Expanding relationships and collaboration with our Federal Sector Partners.
• Identifying educational content, and delivering that content across multiple channels and modalities that allows AHRMM to meet the varied learning styles of today’s professionals.
The culmination of this activity is the commitment of our Advisory Board, staff and supporting committees in this process – we have established an embedded, longitudinal approach to ensuring execution of these strategies.
HCB News: Can you tell us more about what attendees can expect at the annual meeting in Columbus, OH?
MS: Reimagining AHRMM extends to reimagining our annual conference. Building upon and modeling last year’s supply chain week theme, AHRMM will be highlighting the power of partnership and in particular our first ever Community “Give Back” Project that stems from our collaboration with the Greater Ohio Chapter of AHRMM and Henry Schein Cares.
We’ve listened to the field and have made changes based on the feedback received including negotiating government rates for our hotel rooms and creating a “one-member” pricing model for both our provider and affiliate members.
Delivering leading edge education and solutions from our valued exhibitors, and key announcements regarding upcoming curriculum programming and projects our members can expect from AHRMM during Monday’s General Session.
HCB News: Are there any sessions or presentations that you're particularly excited about?
MS: I want to thank our colleagues from across the health care field for submitting their session abstracts and acknowledge the work of our Annual Conference Education Committee in finalizing the excellent line-up of speakers and content to the benefit of our attendees.
Leadership will be one of our key themes. Some examples include our first ever CQO Learning Lab Workshop that will be open to all conference attendees. This session will be facilitated by Brian and Melanie Jones from the Table Group (founded by Patrick Lencioni) which will be focusing on leadership training and team building skills. Our Federal Sector Transformational Leadership session which will bring together both Military and Civilian senior leaders who will share how they have navigated transformational leadership in health care systems. Tuesday’s General Session, Talent Triumph: Overcoming Workforce Challenges in the Health Care Supply Chain where we will explore emerging trends in talent development and gain valuable insights into the evolving competencies required for both subject matter experts and leadership roles.
Our round tables sessions will highlight our continued efforts to mitigate Human Trafficking within the health care supply chain, and raise awareness to the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), the FDA’s current stabilization period and trading partners’ interoperable systems and processes for enhanced drug distribution security.
We will host a no-cost preconference session that highlights AHRMM’s Health Care Learning Community on Sustainability. This community of like-minded supply chain professionals has come together to explore how to increase sustainability through the practices, products and services used in the delivery of care. Learn more about the focus of our three work groups as they share their leading practices currently under development.
HCB News: What are some of the hot topics you expect attendees to be talking about at this year's meeting?
MS: The ever-popular topic of AI, but not forgetting about the importance of Business Intelligence (BI). Other themes include workforce recruitment and retention, spend under management and supply chain’s role in non-labor spend, developing today’s supply chain professional into tomorrow's supply chain leader, and the power of collaboration between providers and suppliers.
HCB News: Who or what inspired you to follow a career in health care?
Mike Schiller: To be honest, health care was not my initial career path. Growing up in the Apollo era I dreamt of becoming an astronaut. When I found out that 20/20 vision was a requirement, let’s just say my goals shifted towards a career at NASA or in the field of astronomy. Life happens, and I found myself working at a pharmaceutical distribution center which was the starting point of my health care, and more importantly, my supply chain career.
HCB News: Can you tell us about your history with the AHRMM and why you first joined?
MS: After my tenure at Lederle Labs, I worked at Baxter before leaving to work at a prominent children’s hospital. Understanding the power of education and networking, I joined AHRMM at this time and began attending their annual conferences, education sessions and our local chapter meetings. I had the opportunity to present with and learn from my peers, which was a cornerstone of my career development and advancement.
HCB News: What did that journey look like, from joining AHRMM to taking on your current leadership role?
MS: I started my 17-year tenure at the children’s hospital in the surgical services department. Here I gained valuable clinical perspectives on product use and utilization that were incorporated into supplier contracts and relationships, and supply chain management practices implemented within a procedural setting. From there I took a job in our IT department where I had the opportunity to project manage our ERP conversion, moving our separate MMIS and Financial platforms into a single ERP platform. Once implemented, I moved into the system administrator role and with that, had the opportunity to learn every aspect and module within our single platform ERP. This end-to-end knowledge provided me a big picture understanding of the functionality available to us as an organization. I moved from IT to Support Services where I began to take on more aspects of the organizations supply chain operations. Our ERP provided a centralized supply chain management platform allowing us to decentralize and redeploy staff into new positions and key departments across the organization. By 2007 our acute care supply chain was touchless. I eventually closed out my career moving from operations to our new hospital planning and construction team – it was an amazing project and a true capstone career experience!
Upon completion of the new hospital, I worked briefly for a capital equipment startup company and then AHRMM, where I worked as the Senior Director of Supply Chain for almost 10 years. At this time, AHRMM had just completed the development of its Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Movement and wanted to bring on staff a supply chain professional to work with colleagues and peers across the health care field to raise awareness to, and adoption of CQO and Clinical Integrated Supply Chain methodologies. Which leads us to today, where I have the absolute honor and privilege to lead the association for health care supply chain professionals, the organization that gave so much to me over the years - AHRMM is a part of the fabric of my career.
HCB News: What are some of the biggest initiatives that AHRMM is currently focusing on?
MS: We are well underway in our Reimagining AHRMM 1.0 campaign (note 1.0 implies there will be a 2.0). This is not a one-year initiative or program, but a new direction that AHRMM is taking. It starts with the new banner flying over the AHRMM Headquarters – Transformational Excellence. Transformational excellence involves pursuing excellence as we embrace new ways to work, collaborate and elevate today’s supply chain professionals who lead our health care supply chains.
There are six key initiatives we are focusing on this year – listed in no particular order:
• A renewed focus on the development of educational content that meets our member’s needs where they are now and, their envisioned career pathways.
• Intentional alignment with our Affiliated Chapters.
• Understanding and thoughtfully advancing AI adoption across the health care supply chain.
• Purposeful engagement with health care and supply chain executive leadership.
• Expanding relationships and collaboration with our Federal Sector Partners.
• Identifying educational content, and delivering that content across multiple channels and modalities that allows AHRMM to meet the varied learning styles of today’s professionals.
The culmination of this activity is the commitment of our Advisory Board, staff and supporting committees in this process – we have established an embedded, longitudinal approach to ensuring execution of these strategies.
HCB News: Can you tell us more about what attendees can expect at the annual meeting in Columbus, OH?
MS: Reimagining AHRMM extends to reimagining our annual conference. Building upon and modeling last year’s supply chain week theme, AHRMM will be highlighting the power of partnership and in particular our first ever Community “Give Back” Project that stems from our collaboration with the Greater Ohio Chapter of AHRMM and Henry Schein Cares.
We’ve listened to the field and have made changes based on the feedback received including negotiating government rates for our hotel rooms and creating a “one-member” pricing model for both our provider and affiliate members.
Delivering leading edge education and solutions from our valued exhibitors, and key announcements regarding upcoming curriculum programming and projects our members can expect from AHRMM during Monday’s General Session.
HCB News: Are there any sessions or presentations that you're particularly excited about?
MS: I want to thank our colleagues from across the health care field for submitting their session abstracts and acknowledge the work of our Annual Conference Education Committee in finalizing the excellent line-up of speakers and content to the benefit of our attendees.
Leadership will be one of our key themes. Some examples include our first ever CQO Learning Lab Workshop that will be open to all conference attendees. This session will be facilitated by Brian and Melanie Jones from the Table Group (founded by Patrick Lencioni) which will be focusing on leadership training and team building skills. Our Federal Sector Transformational Leadership session which will bring together both Military and Civilian senior leaders who will share how they have navigated transformational leadership in health care systems. Tuesday’s General Session, Talent Triumph: Overcoming Workforce Challenges in the Health Care Supply Chain where we will explore emerging trends in talent development and gain valuable insights into the evolving competencies required for both subject matter experts and leadership roles.
Our round tables sessions will highlight our continued efforts to mitigate Human Trafficking within the health care supply chain, and raise awareness to the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), the FDA’s current stabilization period and trading partners’ interoperable systems and processes for enhanced drug distribution security.
We will host a no-cost preconference session that highlights AHRMM’s Health Care Learning Community on Sustainability. This community of like-minded supply chain professionals has come together to explore how to increase sustainability through the practices, products and services used in the delivery of care. Learn more about the focus of our three work groups as they share their leading practices currently under development.
HCB News: What are some of the hot topics you expect attendees to be talking about at this year's meeting?
MS: The ever-popular topic of AI, but not forgetting about the importance of Business Intelligence (BI). Other themes include workforce recruitment and retention, spend under management and supply chain’s role in non-labor spend, developing today’s supply chain professional into tomorrow's supply chain leader, and the power of collaboration between providers and suppliers.