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As head of supply chain management for a nationwide alliance of 1,900 hospitals and health care facilities, Herb Johnson is working to change how health care is delivered in this country.
In the great public debate over health care, supply chain management might seem a secondary issue. But how well or badly the health care supply chain is managed is a major factor in health care costs.
It was the challenge and opportunity to bring supply chain discipline to the disparate world of hospitals and other not-for-profit health care systems that lured Herb Johnson to Premier just over a year ago. Johnson left drug store chain CVS, where he was senior vice president of logistics, to become Premier's executive vice president of supply chain management.
Premier, based in San Diego, is a nationwide alliance of hospital and health care systems that collectively operate some 1,900 hospitals and other health care facilities. That's about one-third of the hospitals in the United States. Premier provides those owners with a wide variety of services and resources, including supply chain management and group purchasing. Premier itself is not-for-profit, although its group purchasing company operates as a for-profit company.
Johnson, who has a distinguished career in logistics, including a just-completed term as president of the Council of Logistics Management (CLM), says he was drawn to Premier to be able to contribute to improving the nation's health care system.
"The health care industry is in trouble financially," he says. "The supply chain is owned by the manufacturers and distributors, and somewhat by the health care providers. The health care supply chain as an entity is a misnomer; it is such a disjointed process. This was an opportunity to do something that I could not...