Smart Use of Collaboration

Over the last couple of months, a number of webinars have been advertised either with Becker’s or with the American Hospital Association regarding how hospitals should supply and be ready with PPE (personal protective equipment). This has caused me to think about how hospitals handled being prepared for the pandemic in the first place.

I would love to see a more collaborative methodology. Take for example Omaha, Nebraska. What happens if the hospital systems all got together and rented space to store important components, including PPE and ventilators to maximize effectiveness and minimize cost. Or, if a group of hospitals in Los Angeles or Houston, or Chicago did the same. And yet, we’ve almost run out of PPE several times in multiple hospitals and systems across the United States. How did this happen?

Somehow, the bottom line got to be more important than preparedness or a long-term investment. The idea of “just in time” inventory has been used for years. Basically, it means we order just as much as we need to get there exactly when we need it. That works until there are no supply chain issues or you don’t need five times the average, or need it overnight. This is in part of an epidemic of CFOs in finance departments making clinical decisions based on finance rather than clinical need or outcome. And it’s wrong.

The same applies to philanthropy. It seems the CFO has more and more control over the dollars being spent in fundraising… and yet knows nothing about fundraising or philanthropy. In all of these cases, it’s time for there to be a more equalized conversation and decision-making process on investment of assets, whether it’s defined by the necessary aspects of fundraising or to make sure our hospitals have enough basic PPE to serve the next stage of any possible pandemic.