Gartner’s Healthcare Supply Chain Top 25 for 2024
Gartner has released its 16th annual Gartner Healthcare Supply Chain Top 25 ranking, which celebrates the U.S. health systems which have demonstrated strong leadership across the supply chain.
Since its foundation in 1979, in Stamford, Connecticut, Gartner has provided information services and objective insights to executives through its research. The company has guided organisations to make smarter decisions on critical priorities. Naturally, the healthcare supply chain is of critical interest to all. Gartner’s 20,000 associates support 15,000 client enterprises across 90 countries.
The digital healthcare supply chain
Its Healthcare Supply Chain Top 25 ranking is built using quantitative measures and opinions from across the industry. Quantitative measures provide a view of financial health, patient care, ESG, risk management and supply chain excellence. Meanwhile, the opinions gathered look at value chain leadership and supply chain performance. They are combined together into a total composite score.
For the Healthcare Supply Chain Top 25 for 2024, Gartner included a quantitative risk management component to the ranking, to recognise the role of healthcare systems in their attitude to risk management.
For the first time, AdventHealth claims the top spot. Stanford Health Care, Bon Secours Mercy Health, Corewell Health and Banner Health made it to the top five, while BayCare Health System and HCA Healthcare return to this year’s list.
According to Gartner’s research, the health system supply chain is involved in just 72% of the organisation’s spending, suggesting that 28% remains unmanaged centrally.
However, health systems with net patient revenue under US$5bn, have unmanaged spend reaching 38%.
To address this, healthcare systems are widening the influence of the supply chain through stronger organisational collaboration and are being invited to play a role in spend allocation happening in a greater number of areas, such as:
- Pharmaceuticals
- Information technology
- Categories of purchased services.
Health systems are significantly increasing their adoption of digital solutions, automation tools and analytics solutions to enhance their supply chain operations. Initiatives include implementing warehouse automation systems, utilising robotics and AI-driven solutions for inventory management. Continuous adoption of digital solutions will drive improvements in supply chain operations, ultimately leading to enhanced efficiency, cost savings and better patient care.
Gartner analyst highlights healthcare supply chain resilience and clinical integration in 2024
Eric O’Daffer, Vice President Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, recognises that in 2024, health system supply chains have been strained and service has been impacted by ongoing disruption, from natural disasters to port closures.
“Amid a challenging environment, leading health systems have placed a greater emphasis on risk management while continuing to build improved capabilities in their supply chains by prioritising clinical alignment, increasing organisational collaboration and accelerating the digital supply chain,” he said.
Health systems are showing a dedication to improving processes, investing in technology and integrating systems to enhance service delivery in clinical areas.
This includes providing clinicians with tools for better decision-making, to spot areas of unnecessary supply variation between facilities, which will minimise the impact on patient outcomes while controlling costs.
“We have found a lack of investment in the clinical side of supply chain operations by most organisations, with only 3% of the overall supply chain budget allocated to the clinical side,” Eric added. “The top 25 healthcare supply chains invest a higher percentage to work more closely with clinical areas. These efforts include managing preference/procedure cards, controlling inventory, reducing unnecessary variations and tracking costs per case.”
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