Building a sustainable, transparent healthcare supply chain | 2/21/2024

Climate Health Innovators! Embark on a bi-weekly journey where we explore groundbreaking ideas, pivotal news, and exciting opportunities designed for anyone interested in championing climate action in healthcare. If you know someone who would benefit from CHILLing with us — clinicians, builders, or funders — tell them to subscribe here. 📬

In this week’s newsletter, we’ll be covering another whitespace that we see for builders, makers and entrepreneurs to build climate health solutions. The opportunity: How can we create a more transparent supply chain, to help procurement departments make climate-smart purchasing decisions? But first…

We’ll be at #ViVE2024!

Come meet us in Los Angeles at #ViVE2024! We’ll be organizing and speaking on two panels, and one of our panelists Oriana Fuentes is the founder and CEO of Mika Health where they’re building smart inventory management software to tackle the supply chain opportunity head-on:  

Whitespace: Building a sustainable, transparent healthcare supply chain

When you break down where emissions come from in a health system, 60 to 80% are embedded in the products and services that organizations procure. Healthcare is one of the largest waste-producing sectors in the U.S., producing 6 million tonnes of waste annually. But the crazy part is that this waste is totally avoidable — $765 billion a year of medical supplies that are thrown out are in perfect, usable condition.

A health system’s supply chain makes up 40% of external spend, and it’s become a clear cost-savings priority for execs. Orgs could save billions per year by streamlining supply chain operations; for every $1 invested into optimizing the supply chain, a hospital could make $3 to $4 back.

Better procurement data is the backbone for a transparent supply chain —  to avoid future disruptions, reduce waste, and improve margins. Upstream, procurement teams should be working with suppliers and GPOs to centralize medical supply data and align purchasing power across healthcare orgs. Imagine a marketplace where you could easily compare and “shop” by price, specialty area, manufacturer reputation, and even the environmental impact of products. And downstream, teams can make more informed decisions by layering on clinician-level utilization data like type and frequency of purchases. I’ve got deep conviction that a unicorn is going to be built here in the next decade.

A case study: Kaiser Permanente implemented their Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) program and Scorecard to better evaluate and select products that do not contain harmful chemicals, while also encouraging suppliers to offer more sustainable supplies. In its first year, the program was estimated to save the org $26 million.

Other news

  • The eighteenth edition of the Climate and Health Outlook from the HHS’s OCCHE was published, an effort to inform health professionals and the public on how our health may be affected in the coming months by climate events and provide resources to take proactive action. (OCCHE)

  • The WSJ covers how insurers adjust to assessing climate risk as extreme heat and air pollution have been linked to a rise in hospitalizations. (WSJ Sustainable Business)

  • At the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, AstraZeneca and Seed Global Health convened global health and environmental leaders to identify actionable ways for healthcare systems to adapt to climate change-induced challenges. (Devex)

Events & opportunities

Other events and opportunities in the coming weeks:

  • The International Conference on Climate Change and Human Health Impacts will be taking place on March 10 in New York. Register.

  • Bootcamp for learning about healthcare sector Life Cycle Assessments through Columbia. Register.

  • Aspen Ideas: Climate 2024 is a multi-day event addressing a changing climate with panels, breakout and roundtable sessions, and ttours local and historic resilience points of interest. Taking place March 11–13 in Miami Beach, Florida. Register.

  • HHS OCCHE is hosting a Catalytic Program on Utilizing the IRA with weekly national sessions and breakout for different safety net provider types running through April 11th. Register.

  • University of Washington Symposium on Climate Change and Clinical Practice Thursday, Mar. 28. Register.

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