EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW
What happens next One expert discusses how we arrived at the crises that surfaced amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the road ahead may look like.
In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic was “the perfect storm” for the U.S.
low number of beds, “because we put
healthcare supply chain, said Dr. Eugene Schneller, a professor of supply chain man-
so much into outpatient surgical centers
agement at the University of Arizona State’s W. P. Carey School of Business, and the
and other settings.”
principal at Health Care Sector Advances.
Second, the U.S. has made an unrelentless push towards lowering costs. “One of the things we’ve done is push
8
“If you think about the last decade
And by doing that we turn out to be one
lean,” said Schneller. “Lean means that
to two decades in healthcare, the mergers
of the countries at the tail of the curve
we have relatively few products. We’ve
and acquisitions, the changes in technol-
of number of beds per thousand, with
pushed all of the distribution of those
ogy, a number of things have happened,”
one of the fewest.” While Japan, North
products over to our traditional distribu-
he said. “Number one, we pushed as
Korea and others are leaders in this
tors. And they then are looking at their
much as we could outside of the hospital.
area, the United States has a relatively
inventories and those inventories they’ve
June 2020 | The Journal of Healthcare Contracting
