Leadership Interview
Value Analysis Leadership Interview Brian Shoenfeld, BSME, MEng, Senior Vice President, Talon
Brian Shoenfeld, BSME, MEng, is the Senior Vice President at Talon. Brian joined Talon in 2014 to bring his experience with product development, systems engineering,
and
continuous
improvement
to
healthcare. He’s been in both staff and leadership positions
in
the
defense
and
manufacturing
industries. Brian is a lifelong learner who encourages questions and comments. You may contact Brian at bshoenfeld@taloncontrols.com. (VAMag) How did you get involved in the healthcare supply value chain? Brian: On the surface, Talon is a medication management equipment vendor, which has given us the privilege of being exposed to a wide variety of hospital operating models. This experience has shown us that the impact of our products goes beyond product function and lifecycle costs. Over time, we evolved toward an inevitable alignment with the healthcare supply value chain, which caused a necessary shift for the Talon team to position themselves as trusted advisors first, equipment vendors second. During this journey toward alignment with the healthcare supply value chain, we became a student of Lean to ensure we are recommending
Volume 6/Issue 2
solutions that are best for the hospital instead of what’s best for a single stakeholder at the expense of another. For example, one product we were selling for years optimizes pharmacy operations, but it became apparent that this workflow directly contributed to nurses spending less time at the bedside and more time at the medication room. At the time, we were only collaborating with pharmacy directors, but we now know that downstream departments can also be affected and that we need to understand the impact to those stakeholders as well. Lean emphasizes that value is defined by the customer (external or internal), the importance of discipline around continuous improvement, and focus on the overall effectiveness of each value stream.
Healthcare Value Analysis & Utilization Management Magazine
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