Director of Operations
Novant Health
Huntersville, NC
Please describe your career in healthcare.
Before coming to Novant Health, I was the general manager of a southeast distribution center for a 3M dealer. I spent eight years there learning about warehousing, logistics and how to lead people. When our building was suddenly shut down, I knew that I had found a home in distribution and was excited to take the next step of my career with Novant Health.
I joined Novant Health as the evening supervisor, working on the floor alongside all of our material handlers. It excited me to know that I was playing such a key role in keeping our community healthy.
In my eight years with Novant Health, I’ve held multiple roles, including operations manager, inventory planning manager and now director of operations. Each role has built upon the last and prepared me for where I am today.
What interested you about a career in healthcare?
Being able to utilize my warehouse management skills while working for a premier healthcare organization is a great combination. I am drawn to the responsibility and challenges that come with providing healthcare supplies to our facilities.
Especially through COVID, our team was challenged with unprecedented circumstances, supply shortages and scenarios that we often times thought were insurmountable. I find these challenges motivating, especially when it comes to protecting the health and well-being of everyone around us.
What do you like about working in the healthcare supply chain? Was it a position you sought, or found out about once you began working in the field?
Before coming to this industry, I had no idea about all of the different products that went into hospitals and medical clinics. Our warehouse stocks everything from tissues and gloves to heart stints and surgical supplies. When our processes are flawed or our systems go down, it can literally be the difference between life and death.
Working for Novant Health has allowed me to understand the scope of hospital supply chains and has given me even more of a purpose to ensure that I do my job well. It’s really rewarding to know that our distribution group makes such a large impact on our hospital system.
In what ways has the supply chain changed over the last 2-3 years from your perspective?
COVID and all the challenges that came along with it really pushed supply chain into the forefront of the medical industry. Previously, we were a department that operated behind the scenes. Now, we are directly involved with our clinician counterparts and have open, two-way communication around supply levels and demand. We have the information that our physicians need, supplies and the infrastructure to help solve their problems.
The challenges have also transformed us from a just-in-time model to a just-in-case model. Before COVID, we wanted our operation and inventory to be as lean and streamlined as possible. We have since learned that we need to hold more inventory and expand our pandemic inventory past just PPE. It has really changed the way we approach disaster preparedness.
What are some of the big challenges your supply chain team is facing in 2023?
The good news is that our industry has really started to recover from COVID. However, we are still experiencing transportation issues and raw material shortages through many manufacturers. Over the last two years, we have worked to expand the communication with our vendors and manufacturers to try and stay ahead of these challenges. It has helped some, but we likely won’t see relief for a while still.
Our other challenges revolve around our continued growth and improvement of our systems. In 2023, we will be installing a new ERP and WMS system to help us manage our inventory. We will also be onboarding our newest facility, Novant Health New Hanover Medical Center, into our supply chain and distribution model.
What’s the most rewarding project you’ve worked on recently?
Recently, we partnered with our Novant Health Food Insecurity Workstream to provide patients that screen positive for food insecurity an emergency food pack that they can take home with them.
This is a valuable project that should help impact the 14% of North Carolinians that are food insecure. Through this project, we partnered with non-traditional vendors to obtain the food and packaging needed.
Since we hadn’t stored any type of food within our warehouse before, we also worked with the FDA to ensure that we were in compliance with their rules and regulations. It was a new challenge and an exciting project to be a part of. We look forward to growing this program and being able to spread the impact even further in future years.
Does your organization have a formal or informal leadership development plan? Have you had any mentors that have provided guidance?
When I originally joined Novant Health, I was enrolled in our Leadership Emersion program. It was a great introduction to the expectations of leadership at Novant Health.
The next program I was enrolled in was our Leadership Enhancement Acceleration program. The program consisted of many different leaders across our organization and concentrated on self-leadership, accountability and building a team culture.
Outside of those programs, I have been fortunate to be surrounded by great leaders throughout my life and at Novant Health. My dad laid a great foundation that gave me a leadership example to strive for. Mary Patefield brought me into Novant Health and held me accountable for what I could be.
Our Vice President Mike Bianchin and Senior Vice President Mark Welch have been supportive at every level and have trusted me in all my positions. I also have been lucky to work with and manage our Operations Manager Tony Manning and Inventory Manager Cody Absher. Our culture allows us all to learn from each other and grow. Without them and their teams, we wouldn’t be successful.