On Fridays, we schedule our rounds with Healthcare Brew readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.
This week’s Making Rounds spotlights Glenn Landmesser, VP of digital transformation at RiseNow, a supply chain management consultancy firm.
Landmesser shared some insights into how healthcare organizations are embracing digital transformation—or using technology to improve products, services, and operations in their supply chains (think procurement, inventory management, and distribution) and daily business activities, among other things. He also shared a surprising truth: that technology is not always the answer for problems plaguing health companies.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What’s the best change you’ve made or seen at a place you’ve worked?
I was with an organization in healthcare where they had realized that they lacked a lot of oversight and transparency around their banking relationships, as well as how they make different payments from their treasury system. It became evident very quickly that there were lots of breakdowns in the processes among the accountants and in the region that affect the treasury group. There are also real breakdowns in terms of the adoption of the current software that was available in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
By a combination of improving some of the upstream processes—as well as optimizing the technology that was available and then plugging in a few enhancements in the software—we were able to provide the results that the business wanted with far less cost, as well as far less complexity than it would have been just adding new software that probably wouldn’t have fixed the problem.
What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?
Navigate the healthcare industry
Healthcare Brew covers pharmaceutical developments, health startups, the latest tech, and how it impacts hospitals and providers to keep administrators and providers informed.
A current client I’m working on, as an example, is endeavoring on a full supply chain digital transformation. They really felt as though technology was what needed to be improved. A lot of times people think of it just as technology, but actually, truly digital transformation revolves around effecting change in people and how they will interact with technology as much as anything else.
What healthcare trend are you most optimistic about and why?
The idea that you do not have to just rip and replace your ERP—you can extend the life of it, which is far more cost-effective and less disruptive. This is something that other industries have done quite a bit over the years already, but it’s a bit of a novelty in healthcare.
What healthcare trend are you least optimistic about and why?
Value-based care. That’s been a buzz phrase for almost a decade now. The way we will get more toward value-based care, in my humble opinion, is when the decisions on who to pay and what to pay lies squarely on the consumer and not on the insurance company.
Tell us one new or old health tech product or platform that’s made your life easier.
Epic’s [interoperability platform] Care Everywhere. It’s not necessarily super new, but broader adoption definitely is newer. At a high level, Care Everywhere is a way for any provider system—like a hospital or a private practice doctor—to access a medical record that’s in Epic for another system. That’s something I think is really good in terms of reducing waste in healthcare and also improving the quality of outcomes.