ALTERNATE SOURCING
BY DANIEL BEAIRD
Finding Alternatives St. Luke’s Health System developed new sourcing strategies to serve its frontline workers and patients.
St. Luke’s Health System, based in Boise, Idaho, serves much of Idaho and
War room
parts of eastern Oregon. It operates eight hospitals and more than 200 clinics and
“We built an incident command center
ranked second among the country’s medium-sized health systems by Fortune/IBM
structure for product shortages within a
Watson Health for 2021. It’s the eighth consecutive year St. Luke’s has been in the top
‘war room’ type of setting,” said Adrian
15 on the prestigious list.
Wengert, vice president of supply chain
The recognition is consequential this year considering the work health systems were tasked with in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. Medical supply chains were
for St. Luke’s. It was a few months before the coun-
relentlessly strained, but resolute health systems nationwide relied on strong cultures for
try felt the full effects of the pandemic
problem solving as COVID cases surged.
when St. Luke’s noticed a lack of available
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August 2021 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting
