1. Utilization Savings – The big savings are there but they are outside the comfort zone of many in our industry. We are still very price focused and it will take some time for our industry to recognize the big savings opportunity that is sitting right in front of us, ripe for the  picking. The road less traveled may be the road that bears the biggest and best fruit!

2. Value Analysis Savings – We are missing out on value analysis savings every day because of a multitude of reasons, but the top reason is because we focus too much time on new products and services and not enough time on looking at our long term product categories that we purchase year in and year out. 

3. Purchase Service Savings – Many in the healthcare supply chain feel that this is not their job, but as the resident purchasing and value analysis experts at our respective organizations we must become more involved in these huge dollar expenditures or our organization will continue to lose big dollars without our expertise. Value Analysis and Supply Chain best practices can and should be applied to purchase service contracts for big results.

4. Reusable – We have an aversion to using the reusable, yet in our daily lives we use reusables everywhere. If  you have a solid sterile processing department, why not utilize reusables wherever possible. If your manufacturer sells them then they are a viable option that should be part of your product evaluation/value analysis studies.

5. Reprocessing – This is catching on at many organizations throughout the country but even when you start with a reprocessing program it takes a lot of discipline to maintain the compliance levels once you have achieved them.