Almost a thousand healthcare leaders recently gathered in Orlando, FL, at the Walt Disney Swan Resort for the Spring IDN Summit and Expo, where the spotlight was focused on healthcare supply chain efficiency.

The Summit - which twice annually brings together senior healthcare executives and their group purchasing organization and supplier partners - had its largest turnout since 2005.

Former Modern Healthcare publisher Chuck Lauer was the keynote presenter, and lead a high-level discussion on the state of today's healthcare system and the trials leaders face in trying to improve their organizations.



Culminating a peer-review process that has taken place the last several months, health system attendees voted for the IDN Summit Supply Chain of Excellence Awards, a unique independent program where health system executives review and decide which of the nominated programs has the most value to the industry.

Four finalists had emerged from a round of online voting by health system executives over the past few months and were then considered for awards recognizing exceptional innovation, efficiency (ROI) and ease of replication, as well as overall national honors. The four award finalists were:

1. Baptist Health South Florida, which re-engineered its process for introducing new surgical products for trial and/or use, cutting the time it took to get a new product into the hands of a physician from an average of 38 days to 12.

2. CHRISTUS Health, Irving, Texas, which developed a comprehensive savings plan targeting 10 strategic categories, including costly physician preference items. The project exceeded its goal of $30 million in annual savings, with actual savings of $34.1 million in fiscal year 2010.

3. Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Houston, which adopted a customized program to upgrade its infusion therapy equipment and provide equipment management and maintenance services across the entire 11-facility system, avoiding more than $20 million upfront capital outlays.

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