UI Select - Customized Supply Chain Solutions for your Facility

Introduction & Background

UI Select (UIS), a division of United Iroquois Shared Services (UISS), is pleased to present Supply Chain Solutions, providing supply chain consulting, data analysis, and comparative benchmarking services to its member hospitals. Our staff assists your materials management department by offering cost-reduction and/or standardization solutions that help remove costs and improve your bottom line. With the everyday concerns of delivering timely materials while maintaining patient and physician satisfaction, all within the confines of a hospital budget, our services can be your catalyst in moving cost-reduction initiatives forward. Supply Chain Solutions is unlike other consultants. Our team has been working with you and your staff for the past two decades on advocacy issues, group purchasing, and workforce initiatives. By adding supply chain solutions to our array of offerings, we feel that we are providing a complete package of services to our members. Our approach is to extend our expertise and knowledge in the supply chain area to further assist with the challenges you face on a day-to-day basis.

Our Approach/Process

To get started, our team will visit your facility to conduct an in-depth discussion with your staff to determine your biggest supply chain challenges. Maybe your staff is stretched to its limits and can't find the multiple hours needed to collect, organize, and analyze data. Perhaps you would like to implement a physician engagement or inventory management program but are not sure where to start. Possibly you need assistance in determining the competitiveness of your pricing for physician preference items before you proceed with your next RFP. In these instances and others, Supply Chain Solutions is here to help. After our initial discussion and subsequent information gathering process, we will present an engagement proposal to you that details our services, methodologies, timeframes, and costs for the project. Upon acceptance of our proposal, we will go to work for you.

Our team will arrange on-site meetings and/or conference calls with your staff to obtain the appropriate data for the project, such as your operating room implant log, copies of invoices, and MMIS reports, to name a few. Confidentiality agreements will be signed by all parties due to the sensitive nature of the data. Once we have the information, we will enter, sort, compile, interpret, and analyze the data to give you a detailed report of our findings and recommendations for savings opportunities.

Supply Chain Solutions can offer further assistance beyond the data analysis process if help is needed with implementation of these recommendations. Our goal is to offer as much or as little assistance as you would like in your quest for cost reductions. The decision is up to you.

Examples of our Solutions

Benchmarking Services

Supply Chain Solutions can analyze your information and provide comparative benchmarks back to you. After collecting specific data from your facility and conducting interviews that address your internal processes, we will provide a detailed report of how your current pricing compares against the national average price for the manufacturers used in the areas of, but not limited to:

1. Cardiac cath lab, cardiac rhythm management devices, and CVOR
2. Implant construct types for total hip and knee replacement procedures
3. Implant system configurations for lumbar and cervical fusions

Inventory Management

UI Select is expanding and has and will develop services consistent with member demand. So far, UIS has developed programs in the areas of inventory management process evaluation-including the OR Inventory Management.

Here are the areas that UI Select can assist with:

1. Materials management and related areas like receiving and purchasing
2. Operating room and related areas like anesthesia, recovery room, and ambulatory surgery
3. Main stock room or central supply
4. Nursing floor storage or exchange carts
5. Assessment of any other supply chain entity

Here is how we can help:

1. Increased inventory turns
2. Reduced on-hand inventory
3. Vendor consolidation
4. Product standardization
5. Reduced freight and "rush" orders
6. Improved employee/nursing satisfaction
7. Increased efficiency/productivity
8. Warehouse design
9. Supply distribution to users

We assess and design a custom engagement proposal for your facility....at that point you can accept the proposal as written or request further changes or enhancements based on your needs.

For more information, contact Terry Field, Manager, Supply Chain Strategies, at tfield@iroquois.org or (315) 410-6476.