Senior VP of Business Operations and Chief Pharmacy Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals
December 2023- The Journal of Healthcare Contracting
Please tell us a little bit about your role and responsibilities within your organization
My role at NYC Health + Hospitals is to unify and coordinate the health system’s business operations, pharmacy and supply chain pillars. My main goal is maximizing the health system’s ability to positively impact the health and well-being of our patients and the communities we serve.
Being positioned at the critical intersection of business operations and pharmacy with supply chain brings a unique perspective on key business needs. It facilitates our ability to identify opportunities for strategic innovation and find cost-effective solutions to the variety of challenges facing our health system today. In the end, it enables us to have a significant impact on organizational productivity and support long-term success.
Our strength comes from building multi-functional teams and executing complex implementations using well-developed project plans. My team and I focus on every aspect of the businesses including strategic planning; business unit development; project and product management; marketing and branding; system strategies; training and development program management and delivery; the management of multi-functional work teams; and customer service. This vision-driven approach has uniquely positioned us to impact our organizations’ productivity and long-term success by bringing purpose into the people equation and promoting healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures.
What are some of the biggest challenges facing supply chain teams today?
The importance of the supply chain in healthcare has taken on a whole new meaning in the last several years. COVID and its challenges shed a bright light on the prominent role that supply chain plays in our ability to deliver safe patient care while managing increasing patient volume and keeping costs to a minimum.
One of the greatest difficulties facing healthcare supply chain teams today is ensuring organizational resilience in the face of unexpected disruptions. The ability to strike the delicate balance between preparedness and fiscal responsibility is a necessity for an organization’s success. It’s become more and more challenging as the availability of raw materials, the products themselves, and even the ability to transport them is interrupted.
Another significant issue for supply chain teams is managing the increasing complexity of the supply chain itself. The industry is known to have the greatest expenditure on R&D, and achieving the best possible outcomes for our patients is dependent upon staying abreast of the very latest technology and newest medications. These rapid advances in medical technology and therapies are creating new and unexpected challenges to supply chain efficiency in many forms – specialized storage and shipping requirements, hidden costs, or additional regulatory and compliance requirements – to name a few. This added pressure requires organizations and their supply chain teams to have a new type of agility and to stay current with evolving industry standards while solving these novel problems and continuing to maintain accuracy.
When you hear words like diversity and equity in the workplace, what does that mean to you?
I think of our mission and our workforce at NYC Health + Hospitals. The concepts are baked into the core and mission of our health system: “We provide care to everyone, for anything, at all times, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay.” Our mission recognizes the equal value of every race, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and ability in NYC; the members of our health care teams are proud representatives of the same communities they are honored to serve. Diversity benefits everyone, caregivers and patients alike, because it recognizes and values the unique perspectives, experiences and contributions that each employee brings to the table. In doing so, it brings us all a step closer toward the equity that we strive to achieve.
Equity goes beyond just diversity by addressing systemic barriers and biases that may exist within the workplace. It goes a step further, ensuring access, for both patients and our team members, to the same resources, opportunities and support to allow them to thrive in their respective situations. At NYC Health + Hospitals, we strive to be proactive in identifying and eliminating disparities to foster a workplace culture and care environment that allows all individuals to flourish.
How can prioritizing these values contribute to the success of an organization?
Diversity and equity are included in the strategic pillars of NYC Health + Hospitals and are an enormous area of focus for the organization. As an organization, we believe that prioritizing diversity and equity in the workplace will significantly contribute to our success.
Our priorities are to bring equity to the healthcare landscape by providing care to everyone and fostering a work environment that is free of discrimination or bias and is welcoming to both staff and patients.
Our workforce is truly a mirror image of the diverse community we serve. It affords us a unique opportunity to address disparities and reduce discrimination by bringing a range of opinions and perspectives to problem-solving and helps us achieve our mission. It enhances our ability to connect with and understand our patients and improve patient outcomes.
Finally, organizations that champion diversity have been shown to have a stronger reputation. They are better able to attract top talent, helping with recruitment efforts, and leading to a more competitive advantage in the market. Overall, embracing diversity and equity isn’t just a matter of social responsibility, it’s also a strategic imperative for achieving sustainable success in today’s increasingly diverse and dynamic healthcare landscape.
What is a recent project or initiative you’ve been excited to work on?
Since I joined the health system in January 2020, the Supply Chain team at NYC Health + Hospitals has placed a major focus on developing diversity and equity in our vendor selection. We’ve significantly grown our utilization of M/WBE vendors, increasing contract spend to vendors who meet the qualifications to over 30%. We are partnering actively with our suppliers to establish a Diverse Supplier Council to increase interest and participation in our program and are taking steps to support our M/WBE vendors in expanding their businesses. I’m proud to share that we received the 2022 Premier GPO Supplier Diversity Award for our community involvement, diversity business outreach initiatives, and benchmarking and sharing of best practices.