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!

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