August 24, 2022 – Meena Medler is the Vice President, Supply Chain Management at UPMC. Read an excerpt from The Journal of Healthcare Contracting’s “10 People to Watch in Healthcare Contracting” below.
What are the most important attributes of successful supply chain teams today?
Leadership, and the investment in future supply chain talent, are of the utmost importance in supply chain teams today. The challenge we sometimes find is that the people who have been embedded in supply chain for many years need to understand how to embrace new ideas. It’s important that we cultivate a transformative and innovative growth mindset amongst our teams. At UPMC, we look for individuals who are willing to be trailblazers, and to take the lessons we have learned through the pandemic and put us on the right path. Change is imperative and collaboration is a key component to this. Our people need to be influencers and exhibit the qualities of transformational leaders. Additionally, the ability to sell change internally and externally is of high importance.
The next key attribute of successful supply chain teams today lies in automation, or data-driven decision making in predictive and prescriptive analytics. This includes using technology for transactional activities while optimizing talent towards strategic initiatives. At UPMC, for the past several years, our teams have been focused on robotic process automation (RPA). In the last 12 months, RPA has saved us 16,624 hours of work. In 2022, we project we will save 19,210 hours of work. Year over year, we continue to gain efficiencies by continuing to build on our RPA processes.
The third key element of successful supply chains today is building collaborative partnerships, both internally and externally. It is important to build relationships not just with suppliers, but with service line leaders, our own clinical teams, operational leadership, and so on. Collaboration must start at home. We need to build transparency and trust within our supply chain teams, within our organization, across the health system, and then out to our suppliers. It’s that continuum that will make us successful.
What project or initiative are you looking forward to working on?
There are three key initiatives that excite me the most that I am actively working on and committed to achieving:
- At UPMC, our team has internally developed a leadership program, specific to supply chain. Employees are highly encouraged to participate in this program, and it is multi-faceted with our highest priority areas of development. Communication and cohesion (acting as one team) are always high priorities in an organization. A team simply cannot be successful if members cannot communicate and work well together. Our program offers many opportunities for all employees to participate, and the coursework is woven throughout our regular meetings and communications.
- We have recently formed our UPMC Supply Chain Engagement and Transformation Center of Excellence team, made up of internal consultants who are focused on developing and executing strategic initiatives and process optimization projects across supply chain management to improve efficiency and effectiveness and enhance value to UPMC. Additionally, the team inspires employee engagement and communication to promote a positive culture in the work environment. I have enjoyed helping to develop this team, as well as working closely with the team on many exciting supply chain initiatives.
- In May of this year, UPMC held its first Healthcare Elevation and Transformation Program Supplier Summit, where 15 of UPMC’s top suppliers attended an executive-led session to focus on collective innovation aimed at cost, quality and outcomes. The feedback we received from our first session was overwhelmingly positive, and we are excited to build on this momentum for future sessions.